


KKM Kiss and Tell

by tigersilver



Category: Kyou Kara Maou!
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pining, RST, Slow Burn, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-04-28 00:41:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 41,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14437743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigersilver/pseuds/tigersilver
Summary: Yuuri has been advised by Gunter (of all people!) to try a completely new tactic for dealing with Wolfram's unreasonable jealousy.Old fic, new home. Upon re-reading this I decided to let it stand, as is, sans additional edits. It's as 'over the top' as the anime itself and the me who wrote this so long ago was completely in love with the anime. I hope that bubbly-in-the-blood feeling I felt as a fan and as a fanfiction writer bleeds over and that readers will forgive my younger self's excesses.





	1. Yuuri's Decision

Wolfram's jealousy was horribly out of hand, Yuuri decided, wincing as the blonde muscled his lithe blue-jacketed body in between his erstwhile fiancé and the fawning bevy of young ladies from the newly established Shin Makoku Red Cross Auxiliary.

And really, there was no need for Wolf-chan to be like this. It wasn't like he had any plans to choose a new fiancé, was there? Not like he'd  _chosen_  the one he had now!

"Oh, now, Wolfram—" Yuuri stuttered, blushing a guilty red under the fierce-eyed stare, though he'd done absolutely nothing wrong recently that he could think of. "This isn't what you think…."

"What _I_ think? When did you ever ask me what  _I_  think about this—this  _silliness?"_  Wolfram glared at the candy-striped outfits the ladies wore. The little white aprons only barely disguised a fine array of cleavages. "Women who don't know how to defend themselves don't belong on the battlefield!"

Wolfram glared at them, brows beetling at the terribly cutesy picture they made, all gathered together like a posy of pink flowers, harmless as kittens and just about as effective. He hated it when Yuuri let his good sense be overtaken by his rampant teenage male hormones, indulging in such a prurient desire as to gather together the most nubile young Mazoku females on the excuse of civic service and dress them up in some Earth-fantasy anime fanboy-inspired costumes (that was what Weller-kyo called them, at least; not like Wolfram would know the difference!) – so embarassing for a fiancé he barely acknowledged in public! So he wasn't a woman and couldn't compete - _so_   _what?!_

The Maou sighed heavily under his breath, feeling guiltier by the moment when green eyes turned back to him with painful accusation writ deep in their emerald depths.

Wolfram was a problem – or rather, his perpetual jealousy was.

The ladies of the Auxiliary were all single and young, lovely as rosebuds and just as available for the picking -  _unfortunately_. The sight of them traipsing about Blood Pledge Castle in search of their King generally sent Wolfram into a snit of massive proportions ('picturesque  _fluff'_ ', he called them, and strode around muttering that they had no business interfering with important military matters and taking up the Maou's precious time). Yuuri, well aware of his fiancé's deeply jealous nature, had always made sure to meet with them without him – as they _did_  insist on reporting to their majesty far more often than really necessary – and preferably when his fiancé was out on the training grounds or far away on some mission. Gunter or Gwendal usually helped him out with that, both as avid as he to keep Wolfram from outright explosion.

It was highly unlucky that he'd finally managed to get caught. The luck gods were definitely pissed at him. Wolfram was obviously about to go off the deep end.

" _Yuuri!_  These women have no reason to be here, galumphing around and getting in the way! We have the ambassadors arriving from Pys Puir coming any minute now!" The green eyes flashed fire and Yuuri grimaced, hunching his shoulders against the inevitable diatribe.

"Or did you forget already?" the blonde sneered as Yuuri put his hands out in supplication, palms up, and then waved them about in a silent plea for calm on the part of his overly-protective betrothed.

"Now, Wolfram, that's hardly the way to greet our guests—"

" _Guests!?_ " shrieked the blonde quietly, his fine eyebrows arching over narrowed eyes. "Since when are they ' _guests_ '? Didn't you give them jobs to do?"

"Oh, well, as to that—"

"Why are they here when they're supposed to be working?" the Mazoku demanded, sending a searing glance at the lovely leader of Yuuri's newest pet project.

"Or, are they merely  _decorative_?" Wolfram's lancing glare of derision could have sliced glass – had there been any nearby. Several of the gently bred young ladies gasped aloud at the insult and Lady Anastasia opened her pink-lipped mouth several times without managing to actually _say_  anything, closing it each time with a decided snap, her face developing an unbecoming red color.

The Maou frowned at the sight, opening and closing his own mouth rapidly like a fish out of water. This was so not his element—where heck were Gunter or Conrad when he needed them?

If possible—and Yuuri now realized it  _was_  possible—Wolf-chan assumed an even more irate expression. Darn and double darn! Wolfram just wasn't calming down at all!

Surely, if Yuuri explained slowly and patiently that the Auxiliary existed to provide aid to those harmed in skirmishes with the still-persistent Rebels, succoring the poor unfortunate villagers and townspeople left injured or homeless, Wolf-chan would understand. Yuuri, freshly back from his time on Earth and still in the throes of late adolescence naïveté, had thought it was a great way to get more of the Mazoku involved in his dream of peace – what better way to make friends than to help someone selflessly? And if it was really attractive girls rolling those bandages and toting those supplies, all the better.  _Everybody_  loves a pretty girl.

...Except Wolfram.

Hoo boy, this time the stars  _had_  conjoined against him. He was doomed: the blonde demon was going to blow a gasket momentarily and then he'd likely be punched or tackled or even hauled away by one ear, something Wolf did when he was particularly annoyed with his erstwhile fiancé.  _So_  embarrassing and especially when he was just trying to make a good impression and thank the ladies for their trouble.

"And  _you_  - don't you have  _better_  ways to spend your time than  _flirting_  and  _avoiding your work?"_  Wolfram turned back to the silent Maou and hissed, eyes sparking, after making certain he was still positioned between the leader of the vapid pack of floozies and his fiancé. Annoyance at the wimp's complete disregard for personal safety and propriety roared in his ears, making them hot.

"Isn't Gwendal waiting for you?" Wolfram continued nastily, taunting Yuuri with the spectre of piled-up paperwork. "And even more than that, you must know by now that this is  _far from proper_ , having them here in the family'sprivate Garden with no one to attend you – it's not even remotely  _safe_ , you idiotic wimp! Anybody could surprise you here, you know that! Assassins! Kidnappers! Traitors to the State! And where  _is_  Gunter, anyway?" the Mazoku asked suspiciously, his frown intensifying as he glanced about the sunshine-filled space suspiciously, empty but for their little group.

"Wasn't he supposed to be here with you?"

Yuuri flushed and then brightened ever so slightly at the mention of his chief advisor's name, an unusual reaction that made the furious Wolfram even more suspicious.

" _Yuuri?"_

 _Wait! Wait, wait, wait!_ the Demon King thought, casting about for some possible way of making this rapidly deteriorating situation better.

Hadn't Gunter said  _something_  recently – something about  _changing the way_  he reacted to Wolfram's jealousy? He had to…had to…what was it again? Oh, yes - be  _positive_ , be  _reassuring_. That was the way to deal with this problem.

 _Show that decorative loafer he has nothing to worry about_ ,  _Heika_ , Gunter had advised, his face kind and for once entirely nose-bleed-free,  _and then he'll be sure to calm down_. The young Mazoku warrior-prince was only acting like a jealous fishwife because he was nervous, his advisor confided, since Yuuri Heika still didn't seem to grasp quite all the subtle nuances and endless protocols of being a betrothed Royal even after being here three long years. Well, a total of three years, not counting the Shin Makoku year he'd spent on his wonderful homeland. And not that Yuuri Heika was in any way  _lacking_ , Gunter had gushed, gabbling on – just innocent in the ways of formal courtship, which was really a very _noble_  trait in these days of Cheri-sama's policy of 'free love.'

Yuuri didn't know about 'noble'. He was a teenager, after all, and Oniisan had those Sim dating games running 24/7. It wasn't like he'd never checked them out, wide-eyed at their vaguely pornographic story-lines and abundantly over-endowed lovelies.

But none of the Sim girls were as pretty as Wolfram….and none of them were as deep and, well, '3D.' Wolf-chan was real person, after all, with feelings and dreams and faults and stuff. He was a little on the dramatic side, true, but he wasn't a whiner when it came to what really bothered him. Yuuri had wished more than Wolf-chan would actually bitch a little more often if that's what it took to make him feel better about things.

He didn't like it when Wolf-chan felt jealous of him. It obviously made his fiancé miserable.

…And he'd never thought he'd even think that, so it kinda proved how far he'd come. Not that he actually wanted to think about 'how far he'd come'. Nope, not at all.

…Still, Wolf-chan was equally tight-lipped when it came to his personal happiness, too. He didn't talk a lot about the things that made him really happy—he just _was_ , in a sparkly kind of way. And it was  _true_ , what Gunter had said. Wolfram was always his most charming self when Yuuri took the time to pay him some attention and show him those little courtesies the official Fiancé of the Maou was entitled to – a hand at his elbow when they were being formally introduced, the honor of the first dance at one of Cheri's innumerable balls, a half-hour carved out of Yuuri's hectic day to spend picnicking with Wolfram and Greta. Even an afternoon of hard practice on the training fields or a quiet meal hastily shared in the Library when the Maou had to study to pass Gwendal's pop quizzes seemed to do the trick. Wolf-chan's habitual seriousness disappeared altogether, replaced by a content and easy grin or the occasional flash of mischievous good humor. He would laugh and joke and even refrain from calling his fiancé too nasty names—and when he did use them, Yuuri could always tell they were meant fondly.

Oh, and little gifts made him happy, too, Yuuri remembered, especially the ones brought back from Earth by his fiancé the Maou. Wolf-chan was sweetly shy when he received whatever trinket or treat Yuuri found himself taking back to Shin Makoku, flushing adorably and hiding emerald eyes gone soft as moss. Yuuri definitely admitted he enjoyed that version of Wolfram best, although it only seemed to happen when he consciously went out of his way to make it so. His arrogant, pushy, jealous-as-hell fiancé generally took things far too seriously for Yuuri's easygoing, amiable nature – but if he could do a little more - or maybe a lot more - to make Wolf-chan happier with life, Yuuri'd be glad to.

Really, he _would_. Wolfram von Bielefeld was important to him. Maybe he couldn't quite articulate 'how' or even 'how much' but it didn't really matter, did it? They  _were_  engaged. Fact of life.

"Yuuri! Are you even _listening_  to me?!"

Plus, he kind of  _owed_  Wolfram. The Mazoku lordling was the most fiercely loyal, honest, open and passionate friend he'd ever had. He hadn't liked Gunter's very subtle insinuation that  _he_  was the one jerking Wolfram around. Wolf deserved more than that. They probably would've ended up getting married anyway, Yuuri acknowledged, if only because he'd never be able to find anybody else even remotely as…as suitable as Wolfram.

It made it all a little easier when he thought of it that way. Gunter was right: a new spin on things could make even the hardest of tasks seem easy.  _Yeesh_ , even Murata-kun was right…well, of course, he was right, 'cause he was the Sage, but he  _definitely_  wasn't always right about, um, 'personal matters' like this – the  _pervert!_

But, getting back to the current, slightly more urgent situation – ok,  _way_  more urgent! - how could he be both  _positive_  and  _reassuring_ in _this_ situation? Wolf-chan hated it when girls crowded around the young King – he even disliked it when handsome noble _men_  made their bows and flourishes – and he wasn't liking the ladies of the Red Cross Auxiliary one darn bit. Steam was practically trickling from his flared nostrils and his pretty face was creased with anger.

"Yuuri!"

And pain. There was bitter twist to that fine mouth that disturbed Yuuri more than a little. He'd noticed it entirely too often lately and usually only when there was an attractive stranger in their midst. And there were always attractive strangers—these Mazoku were all very attractive, darn it! Just look at Conrad! Gunter! Even  _Gwendal_ —not to mention Lady Cheri! Hoo boy! Hot stuff!

Maybe Wolf felt threatened by attractive people? Yuuri wondered, tilting his head as he swallowed hard and tried to think of good, practical responses for dealing with a seasoned fire-wielding warrior gone a little nutso. Those  _were_  flames jetting out from Wolf-chan's manicured fingertips, weren't they?

"Well, you see, Wolf-chan—"

"Don't call me  _that_ , you wimp! Stop trying to weasel out of it, you pathetic excuse for a Maou! How dare you try and hide from the Ambassador of Pys Puir? Irresponsible, evasive, double-dealing, cheating  _ **wimp**_!" A steady stream of increasingly puerile name-calling followed the second 'wimp' and Yuuri finally tuned it out, figuring he might as well let Wolf-chan run out of steam, since there was no stopping him now.

…Not that the blonde had anything to worry about in the 'attractive' department , but Yuuri's own reactions (he did have to admit he was a little menkui) to those various 'pretty people' might've resulted in Wolf-chan being a little down at the mouth in the past. He had been vaguely aware of that here and there, but he'd brushed it off pretty much or blamed it on Wolfram's snotty vanity. But Wolfram wasn't snotty and he wasn't vain – and it had been a very long time now that Wolf had been jealous—almost from the very first moment they'd met.

Years, then. Maybe Wolf-chan really meant it? And maybe it was all  _his_  fault that Wolfram lost his cool so often? Yuuri did have to admit he was a little lackadaisical – ok, the concept of marriage should make any normal, red-blooded Japanese teenager run screaming, right? Right! - when it came to their official relationship – they had time, lots of it, or so he'd thought. Why rush into it when he knew it was going to happen anyway? Why rush at all when they'd both live to some ridiculously long age and they didn't even  _need_  to settle down right away? But maybe…maybe that silent hesitation on his part hurt the soft inner bits of Wolfram, the parts he hid from everybody so they wouldn't be bruised or trampled on. Or not so 'silent' – it wasn't like he'd actually kept his objections to himself.

Yeah, he could've hurt Wolf-chan's feelings…could even be hurting them now, unknowing.

 _But he_ does _trust me a little more than he used to_ ,  _at least,_  Yuuri thought, a ghost of smile glancing across his mobile mouth.  _He_   _must know I'm here for good this time._   _Just.. not so much with things like_ this _._

'This' was the crowd of girls, wide-eyed and staring, whispering amongst themselves already about Wolfram's embarrassing little show. Yuuri's brow wrinkled in minor irritation as he watched them. It was high time he did something about the situation. And Wolf had to be annoyed with him for forgetting even the most basic of Mazoku Court courtesies – the Introduction. The blonde was a stickler for convention.

"Wolfram von Bielefeld," Yuuri said in his best  _I-am-the-Maou_ voice, putting out his hand to grasp at the blonde's sleeve and tug it. Wolfram stopped mid-rant, his green eyes going wide with surprise. He stared at the rabble of girls milling in front of him and wondered suddenly just how badly he'd embarrassed himself before them.

"Wolfram, allow me to introduce to you the Ladies of the Shin Makoku Official Red Cross Auxiliary Brigade. This is Anastasia von Schlepping, the Commander-in-Chief." The lady blushed at her name and stood at attention in a feeble imitation of Wolfram's usual rigid stance.

A blonde head whipped sharply in Yuuri's direction, revealing a gorgeously handsome face ( _prettier than any girl_ , Yuuri thought proudly) touched with angry confusion and a distinct hint of shame. Wolfram and Anastasia had known one another for ages, practically since babyhood, and he hadn't liked her the entire time he'd known her. She's always teased him; he'd always ignored her. Maybe Yuuri didn't realize they were already well aware of one another in a most uncomfortable, prickly kind of way?

The Maou grinned winsomely at his puzzled fiancé, oblivious of any dark, swirling undercurrents and absolutely determined to try being totally  _positive_  and  _reassuring_  for once. Besides, the time he'd done this before, Wolf-chan had shut right up and looked really happy. He liked Wolf-chan 'happy'.

"Yuuri?"

Wolfram glanced down at the hand on his coat sleeve, hesitant and suddenly very unsure. Did Yuuri want him to do something unpleasant? Escort these wenches and Icky Anastasia into Blood Pledge, perhaps? Make 'nice' with them? The young King only ever used that cajoling tone of voice on him when he wanted Wolfram to do something he didn't really want to – was he going to get stuck with the Fluff Brigade all afternoon and be humiliated further? They were already laughing at him as it was – he could feel the pitying glances and the heightened interest of young ladies on the prowl for a suitable mate – and Icky Anastasia would be sure to tear him into little shreds the moment Yuuri turned his back. Women were scary that way.

The blonde shuddered, the faintest flinch of emotion, and clenched his fists, willing their attention away from his recent outburst. He glanced up and above their shiny heads, his gaze flitting across the battlements, the wind-flung banners, the blue, blue sky – anywhere but the girls staring google-eyed at him; anywhere but Yuuri's face, which was sure to be frowning in his direction.

He really shouldn't have said anything – he'd tried so hard this time and still his mouth overtook his brain, lashing out with petty, unfounded accusations when he'd meant to keep them all stuffed safely away. He _knew_  Yuuri wasn't cheating – how could he, when he was so busy running Shin Makoku? There was no time for Yuuri to have a real social life yet…maybe later, when things settled down. Maybe then, and then Wolfram would have something  _real_  to be jealous of. And he didn't look forward to it, no. Not when it would mean the inevitable destruction of their 'accidental' engagement.

Green eyes swung back down to earth, skimming over the shining heads of the Auxiliary, still carefully avoiding the black-haired, black-clad youth beside him.

He blinked hard at the hand that still clutched his sleeve, considering what his heart would do when the engagement was dissolved. It was strong and broad, Yuuri's hand, with long, lean fingers ending in crescent-moon tipped nails. He knew it well, having held it now and again, having wished that it - and its mate - would find their contrary way to his lonely body one of those endless nights in Yuuri's bedroom. There'd been a time when he wished it would hold onto him forever, though that really didn't seem very likely now.

Tanned fingers gripped blue uniform fabric even more firmly and jerked the unsuspecting blonde Mazoku closer at last, startling Wolfram out of his reverie, and sending him into an ungraceful little stumble. He flinched when the hand left his sleeve and the arm attached slid deftly around him, steadying him and pulling him close enough to feel the heat of Yuuri's body right through his regal black Royal garb.

"Ah!" Wolfram gasped involuntarily, and felt the blood rush to his ears, his face, and his throat in a rising tide he couldn't quell.  _So embarassing_  when Yuuri touched him – he couldn't hide the unquenched longing within him no matter how hard he tried.

Wolfram wrenched his wretchedly adoring gaze down immediately to focus on his booted toes, mired in confusion and the enthralling roar of his own unsteady heartbeat, completely unaware that his green eyes bloomed golden fire at Yuuri's touch, gilding the emerald.

"And  _this_ , dear Miss von Schlepping, is  _my_   _fiancé_ , Wolfram von Bielefeld," the Maou continued, his voice bright and steady, his dark head nodding familiarly to the blonde one beside it. Nervous as his prize stallion in a thunderstorm, Wolf tightened his jaw and risked a glance up at his companion, a slight lift of inherent pride angling his pointed chin. They were still nearly the same height, he and Yuuri, after Yuuri's recent growth spurt. They were well-matched again, at least physically, though his uncertain heart knew that they didn't match at all. Wolfram's lips parted slightly as if to silently protest Yuuri's claim –  _Why did Yuuri even bother?_  – and the very tip of a pink tongue peeped out provocatively as he ran it across their sudden dryness.

Yuuri hardly  _ever_  referred to him that way – he no longer even expected the word  _fiancé_  to ever fall deliberately from that mouth, and certainly not in  _that_  voice, so sure and proud. This must be some cruel mockery – a joke between the Royal Auxiliary and the Maou; a new act Yuuri was putting on at Gunter's request or Gwendal's threatening - or perhaps Yuuri was only making use of their formal relationship to ease them both out of a potentially embarrassing situation here and now, which was far more likely, now that he thought about it. How _sickening_  to realize that it was  _he_ who had created this embarassing situation. How  _kind_  of Yuuri to cover for him. Wolfram winced and closed his eyes, shutting out the awful thought of Yuuri  _needing_  to be kind.

He was so lost in distaste over his 'accidental' title—' _Fiancé'? What 'fiancé' when Yuuri never once alluded to an actual marriage? When he never really intended to go through with it, even if Gwendal threatened him with some sort of elder brotherly doom-by-homemade-plushie-suffocation? Even if Weller-kyo_ told _him to? The hated engagement existed now only to scare away unsuitable suitors, Wolf believed; like a mask to frighten ill-behaved children; it was exactly as the Sage said – he was around merely to serve his King with the distraction of his presence, nothing more—_ that he nearly missed the significance of firm lips pressing gently and insistently against his own–soft and warm and a little damp from his own escaped saliva. They slid off almost immediately – Wolf wondered if he'd dreamed it – and he blinked rapidly, as if to clear his vision.

"Yuu—?" The blonde only got one syllable out before his jaw was grasped quite firmly with those strong, purposeful fingers and Yuuri's smiling mouth returned, this time lingering long enough to make the girls gasp aloud and 'ooh' and 'ahhh' with romantic envy.

"Nngh!"

Wolf closed his eyes once more, shutting them out, sinking bonelessly against the band of steel at his back. His brain squirmed uneasily at the unreality of the situation, struggling to keep up with his rapidly heating body. Yuuri had  _never_  done  _this_  before! What to think?  _What to do?_  – so sweet, that brush of smooth damp; so warm that he would melt into a puddle if his fiancé continued.

"My fiancé Wolfram and I will be happy to escort you ladies to your carriages," Yuuri smiled, raising his head a very long moment later and keeping the dazed Mazoku firmly at his side in a show of solidarity that should handily spawn a great deal of very helpful gossip. He grinned as a red-faced Anastasia hurriedly dropped a hasty curtsy and then practically ran for the stables, her sisters-in-mercy galloping right behind her.

"No need, Yuuri Heika!" she called back cheerfully, glancing over her elegant shoulder for a last glimpse of 'boys in love'.  _Oh, my! Time to switch the bets she had or she'd definitely be losing money!_

"I'm sure you and your fiancé have  _much better things_  to do than take care of the likes of us! Please  _continue_  - we're perfectly fine, unescorted – don't worry!" Anastasia winked, a twitch in her eye that made her appear rather more experienced than Yuuri expected from a winsome young thing who looked to be only in her 'teens. She was probably in her 'eighties, though, just like Wolf-chan. Appearances were very deceiving here, especially when it came to people's ages.

The thought struck him that Wolf-chan must be experienced, too, having reached his majority decades ago. Upon consideration, Yuuri didn't like that, so he tucked it back in the far corner of his mind again and concentrated on the sight of scantily-clad girls running through a bed of flowers (ooh! Cheri-sama wasn't going to happy!) and the still breathless and stunning blonde tucked warmly against his one side.

A flurry of delighted giggles followed Anastasia's knowing wink and some of the other young ladies also turned back to wave and wink meaningfully in the direction of their King and his promised Consort. They bustled away finally, candy-stripes billowing in the breeze, their pretty lips already busy figuring the new odds.  _Someone_  would have to contact Dorcas, to be sure.

Yuuri dusted his mental hands of them triumphantly, glad of a good day's work.  _That_  should show the scoffers that Wolfram von Bielefeld was a most precious part of his Royal entourage  _and_  his stuck-on-protocol fiancé should positively agree – hadn't he always wanted his status as Fiancé made crystal-clear to absolutely everyone?

Public displays of affection were  _positive_  and  _reassuring_ , weren't they?

Wolfram actually barely noticed the Auxiliary's departure, slumped against the young King's shoulder, his delightfully blushing face hidden by the black. His head was spinning and he felt oddly sick to his stomach – frightened and terrified and insanely joyful, all at once, swallowing back a great ball of pulsing emotion that made his chest tight and his breathing wispy. He had never expected Yuuri to kiss him willingly – had given up so long ago it wasn't even amusing. If they ever married (and deep in his flinching heart he  _knew_  they wouldn't); if they  _ever_ married, it would be in name only. Yuuri wanted a girl. Yuuri didn't feel the way he felt. Never had; never would. There was, very simply, no hope for that. No hope for _him_. He could only do his duty and be grateful for the chance to remain at his beloved Maou's side, acting as he always did so as not to worry his King unduly. Yuuri had better things to do than feel concern about the state of his 'accidental' fiancé's heart. Much better; much more important in the long run than a silly little ex-Prince with a King-sized crush.

Wolfram was just happy to have Yuuri back in this world. His world— the world that needed Yuuri desperately. He wouldn't do anything to endanger that, even if it cost him his own happiness. Having Yuuri here in Shin Makoku, fiancé or not,  _was_  Wolfram's happiness.

Aberration – that soul shattering kiss had been an aberration. Hormones; a sudden outbreak of wimpishness; a 'brain fart', as the Sage sometimes (very oddly) called weird things that people did without good reason. His wimp of a fiancé obviously wasn't thinking straight. Or he was – too straight. Or something. Something odd—something that meant nothing; that's all that was.

Wolfram shook his head at it, not comprehending.

"Yuuri."

The blonde raised his chin proudly. He couldn't stay like this for much longer – Yuuri would step back any second now, letting him go. Better to do that himself right this minute; show the Maou his fiancé-in-name-only wasn't expecting a continuation or a cuddle or anything  _else_ , for that matter. He wasn't so  _weak_ , after all. He wouldn't stoop so low as to take advantage when Yuuri obviously had no clue as to what he had done.

The Maou was acting weirdly pleased with himself, Wolfram noticed, practically patting himself on the back, black eyes sparkling with boyish mischief. Wolf's gaze narrowed and his back became subtly straighter as he finally caught on.

So, Yuuri had  _meant_  to do that. He had thought that was it. His transparent wimp of a politically unsubtle fiancé clearly believed he'd saved the day with that little act of loving kindness– and perhaps he had. Certainly, they'd forgotten all about the slew of embarrassing and downright rude words Wolfram had just screamed at his fiancé-in-name-only. But the girls would still gossip about the Unexpected Kiss that just happened right under their pointy little noses and then it would be heard all around Blood Pledge soon enough, humiliating them all and making Yuuri horribly uncomfortable with him again as soon as he realized. He didn't want that, Wolfram realized, frowning. So much better to have Yuuri treat him honestly as he always did – as a friend, an ally. Nothing more.

He'd firmly ignore this little incident, Wolfram decided, brush it off as the social evasion Yuuri had kindly meant it to be. It was the only thing he could do. Talking about it would be worse than emotional suicide; having Yuuri admit out loud that it meant nothing would slay him as surely as any assassin's blade.

The proud young demon cleared his throat, and swept a careless hand over his immaculate sleeve, wiping away imaginary lint in a stalwart effort to present a calm, collected face to his betrothed.

 _Like Conrad does_ , Wolfram thought, a little hysterically. In the future he'd try to be much more like Conrad, always cool and smiling. Yuuri would probably prefer that. He admired Weller-kyo; valued him highly.

"We should r-return, w-wimp."

Stupid him, for still having a lump in his throat. He cleared it again and continued with steely determination. There was protocol to follow here. Yuuri needed to pay attention.

"Your _important_  guests from Pys Puir are probably arrived by now and you need to be in the Great Hall to officially greet them. Stop wasting time lollygagging around in the garden and come _in_ , Yuuri," Wolfram commanded, his voice admirably steady. "They're waiting for you."

Wolfram turned on his heel, pushed the flop of honey blonde hair off his brow impatiently and marched forward, back to reality. Yuuri's brow crinkled in puzzlement and consternation as he dutifully followed after, matching his pace to the long-legged stride of the ex-Prince preceding him.

Wasn't Wolfram going to say  _something_?  _Anything?_  Yuuri didn't expect a 'thank you' precisely, but it would've been nice if the Mazoku would've at least acknowledged the kiss; maybe smiled or something, or looked a little bit pleased. He had been both  _positive_  and  _reassuring_ , hadn't he?

_Hadn't he?_

"Wolf-chan?"


	2. Yuuri's Mantra

_And again_ , Yuuri fumed, royally pissed.  _I've got to do it_ again!

Stupid Wolfram! Damn his jealous issues to heck! This was going to be totally, mind-bendingly embarrassing! There were a  _billion_  people here, including every single one of his friends and adoptive family – even  _Greta!_

But, hey, it would be way  _more_  embarrassing if Wolfram actually said those terribly unpleasant words that so obviously hovered on his pouting lips or continued to glare at the long-awaited ambassador from Pys Puir as though she were an utterly disgusting bug. Much better to stop this before it even got started, right?

_Be positive_ , he told himself.  _It'll all work out if I just maintain a_ positive _attitude_.

He turned his head and kissed the blonde at his side without hesitating a nanosecond longer, covering the downturned lips completely with his own firm, slightly chapped ones, his duty as Demon King to Promote the Peace foremost in his mind, though he kept his sharp black eyes open to gauge Wolf's expression. Emerald green orbs met his and went wide, wide, wider than dinner plates till Wolfram finally spluttered and flushed a lovely scarlet, wrenching his head back.

"Wha? _Wha_?  _Yuur_ —!"

Yuuri's fiancé got no further, for his heated cheek was cupped firmly and a nose bumped his own. Lips met again, cutting Wolfram's protest right off.

Lady Sylfan duPlessisSansdeMiserie also blushed— a delightful cherry red that set off her light green hair most becomingly and Yuuri grinned quite happily into the soft lips pressed against his and kissed Wolf-chan all the harder and more deeply. Murata barely stifled a giggle somewhere behind them and Conrad's face went carefully and utterly blank. Gunter smiled proudly at his disciple, handkerchief to his nose, and Gwendal snorted, the expression on his face quite something, Yuuri thought. Something indescribable, actually. He should definitely do this kindo f thing more often – it certainly seemed an effective way of making them all sit up and take notice!

" _Mmmnn_ …."

Especially Wolf-chan, who no longer had that killer look in his eyes. It had been replaced with something much more beguiling – Yuuri was quite pleased to continue this experiment with being  _positive_ and  _reassuring_. It was working out really well.

" _Um_ ," Wolfram said, or tried to, and got tongue. His eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp in Yuuri's arms, the clenched fists of a moment earlier spread wide and seeking blindly, finding their way at last to cling to Yuuri's shoulders. A minute passed – endless for the hall full of shocked and amused courtiers, timeless for the stunned blonde demon whose mouth was being so delightfully invaded – and pleasantly timely for a young man who'd only done this type of mushy-gushy romantic thing only a very few times before.

Yuuri finally grinned at the dazed look on Wolf's face, figuring his fiancé had had more than enough to convince him there was no threat present, and withdrew his damp lips, turning at last to the Vice Admiral of Pys Puir with a very friendly smile plastered on them.

There, that should do it. Another introduction, another kiss to make his claim quite clear. Wolf should be happy with him. Wolf should be ecstatic. Wolf-chan should  _not_  be jealous at all.

"Lady Sylfan," Yuuri continued, as though his prior formal speech of welcome hadn't just been interrupted by a most passionate interlude, "I am _so_  pleased to introduce you to  _my fiancé_ , Wolfram von Bielefeld."

"Mmmm…." murmured Wolf-chan, fluttering his lashes. Yuuri thought those lashes should be registered as weapons, considering what they could do to innocent onlookers—like himself.  _Hoo boy!_

"Wolf-chan, may I present Lady Sylfan?" he finally asked, turning fully back to the blonde leaning quite heavily against his arm. Wolfram blinked rapidly for a second or two longer and then nodded in Lady Sylfan's direction eventually, clearly thinking of  _other things_. Ignoring both the Lady and Yuuri, he brought a wavering fingertip to his reddened mouth and let it lay there, his glorious eyes the color of newly-mown grass, wide and still rather stunned.

"A pleasure," Wolf-chan muttered, nodding in her general direction, "to meet you," not even  _seeing_  the delightful picture Lady Sylfan presented them, all decked out in the ceremonial thigh-high, slit-sided white silk toga of the Pys Puir Navy. Dark eyes danced before him instead, full of mischief and warmth and…kindness. He blinked again and found himself wishing for more  _kindness_ , if  _that_ was what it felt like.

"Then we should proceed to dinner, I think. I'm sure we've  _all_  worked up good appetites by now," Yuuri grinned impishly.

"I know _I_  have."

A wooden-faced Gwendal promptly stepped up and presented his arm and Lady Sylfan took it gratefully, contenting herself with the grave attentions of the young Maou's Commander-in-Chief of the Shin Makoku Army. Certainly, she'd hoped to forge a closer…alliance…with the young-and-very-charming Demon King, but it seemed as though all the rumors about his  _faux_  engagement were sadly false.

Yuuri had just politely seated his still inattentive fiancé when it finally dawned on Wolfram exactly  _what_  his wimp of a betrothed had just said back there in the Great Hall.

"…Pervert! You! You… _ **pervert**_ _!"_

The fireball set Yuuri's padded chair cushion to smoking gently. The Great Sage giggled uncontrollably for quite some time longer than it took to put it out.


	3. Wolfram's Dilemma

Wolfram stared at the field laid out below him, shifting forward on the window seat carved into the ancient stone sill and absentmindedly discarding the book he hadn't been reading.

The Maou was below, fencing with Weller-kyo, his black jacket discarded for shirtsleeves, his face flushed and sweaty. Weller, in contrast, was as cool and calm as a cucumber, even from this distance. The blonde demon spared a second for pea-green envy –  _he_  should have been the one down there, practicing with his fiancé, encouraging him, challenging him, teaching him all the young half-blood King needed to know for his own protection, but he'd refused to, at the very last moment turning Yuuri's earlier request over to his own half-brother, unable to contemplate even another minute spent in close contact with a Demon King who was acting entirely out-of-character.

"Tsk!"

The Mazoku pressed his fingertips to the rippling panes of ancient glass hesitantly, the coolness of the surface a pleasant contrast to the swirling heat of his own emotions.

He was so  _confused_. On edge, as if Yuuri had decided suddenly to turn his dull, comfortable world at an odd angle and leave it there, dangling, fingertip to cliff edge.

_So hungry_ , for the public kisses he'd been given had only whetted his appetite for intimacy. He had consciously claimed he'd long since given up any real hope for loving touches from Yuuri – why bother to torture himself now longing for something he was never going to get?

(Though he hoped anyway, of course, and why lie to himself like that? Of course he hoped! He'd hope till he was dead somewhere in a ditch. They were both living, breathing people in close proximity to one another, weren't they? They were in a 'relationship', by Shinou's Grace, that gave them every opportunity to be  _private_  and…and  _together_  and…and Yuuri might…Yuuri had…

_Yuuri had kissed him.)_

The blonde brought his hand to his mouth, remembering the feel of each of those confusing, soul-destroying moments. He had not realized that such long-awaited warmth could leave behind such a sense of desolation when it passed. But he was always moth to flame, unable to resist.

Below him, the King and Weller-kyo stepped apart, laughing, blunted swords to their sides. The dark head tilted, mid-comment, and curious eyes turned upwards, sweeping the façade of Blood Pledge, as if he knew in some arcane manner that his fiancé watched over him. Wolfram ducked instinctively; Yuuri mustn't know he cowered here, gazing after him like some lovelorn ass. His pale fingers clenched in self-derision – a year ago, he'd have been shouting for the Maou to notice him; hell, a year ago, he'd have been down there, jealously claiming his right to teach Yuuri all about swordsmanship, all about anything, anything at all.

And now he was reduced to hiding, for those kisses had completely unmanned him; had torn away his defensive anger and left him….

_So sad_ , for it must be a jest or a foolish conspiracy or some new way for His Majesty the Maou to make use of him. He was a tool, was he not? A soldier: a shield, a sword, a thing that functioned only to guard their precious King in his most private of moments. Even Yuuri admitted the practical truth of that, so why taunt him so unmercifully when he'd finally gotten used to his real position?

(He'd kissed before, several times with several people. He'd flirted with the possibility of going a little…further. But he'd never forgotten to breathe altogether, nor failed to remember his circumstances or who might watching. He'd always worried about how it might appear or what might be said about him later….always  _before_ , and now decidedly  _ **not**_. When Yuuri kissed him, his fine, gentlemanly sense of propriety was just so much ash in the wind and he bowed before a force greater than all his petty worries and simply gave in…)

( _Pervert_!)

And  _why_ hadn't his brothers said a thing about these random, increasingly passionate, extremely public kisses!?  _What_  did they know about this whole topsy-turvy situation that they weren't telling him!? Even Gunter had kept his normally loquacious trap shut, only winking at a still-dazed Wolfram half-way through the State dinner last night, the most recent Maou-assault Wolfram could remember – could never forget. That was weird, weird, so odd, and it must be Yuuri's doing…but  _why_!?  _Why!?_

"Stupid wimp!"

He didn't know what to do, how to react. It had been twice now in three days and this newly incomprehensible Maou only smiled sweetly at him afterwards and continued on his merry way, leaving a stunned Wolfram in his wake.

" _Ungh_! Idiot!"

The blonde wrapped his arms around his middle, hugging himself, and leaned forward, the glass of the window pane now downright cold against his flaming forehead, steamy green eyes unwavering on the dark head busy below him. They were at it again, dulled practice swords clashing, Weller steady in his advance while Yuuri fell back.

(Yuuri should rest now; he was getting tired, his face red and cheeks puffing. If Wolf were down there right now, he would've called a halt five full minutes ago. The wimp can't fight well when he can't breathe, Brother – why don't you  _ever_  remember that? Don't you see?

[Always pushing, that Weller. Always pushing himself  _in between_.]

…If he were the one down there with Yuuri, he'd take a minute or two right now to show Yuuri some new footwork, so the wimp could have a short break. It worked every single time, like clockwork – Yuuri came back refreshed and then he'd manage to retain the feint or angle or whatever it was Wolf had decided was the actual lesson  _du jour_. Of course,  _that_  was because he understood the limits of the new recruits, which Weller did _not_ , because  _he_  was the one saddled always saddled with training the rookies, whereas Conrad only had seasoned troops to deal with in his elite squadron.

…If  _he_  was down there, with Yuuri, he could be doing his _job_  instead of creeping around like some weak-willed, lovesick idiot.)

[Useful. Wanted.  _Needed_.]

It tore at him,  _not knowing_ , for Wolf was used to being certain of his path. He had a mission: protect Yuuri. He had a purpose: give his all, if need to be, to protect the doubly-precious Maou, keep him safe and smiling and focused on Shin Makoku. Surely, it had been made apparent to him by that ass Murata, the reincarnated Great Sage, that this was his only available role at this point, his only option. When Yuuri had returned unexpectedly, after all Shin Makoku had given up hope of ever seeing their beloved King again, their years-long 'accidental' engagement had never formally been resumed…but then again, as Murata pointed out, it had never been specifically ended, either. Not by Yuuri, at least.

It struck Wolfram, still reeling with joy at having Yuuri once more by his side, a mere arm's-length away, that the oddly somewhat-more-savvy-and grown-up Maou found it useful to have a shield between him and every match-making mama in Shin Makoku and that he, Wolfram von Bielefeld, was especially convenient for that purpose, being already inured to the role. As for him, how could he object to any of it when it kept him near the one he loved? He'd been so grateful for the chance to even _see_  Yuuri again - how could he say 'no' when it meant that Yuuri needed him? When had he  _ever_  been able to say 'no' to Yuuri?

(The Sage had said so, that his role would be 'different'...this time. He'd nearly thought the Sage had meant 'different' in a way that meant  _marriage_ , but no, of course not, it was never what he hoped for, was it? But if Yuuri wanted it, if he was comfortable having Wolfram that close, all the time, then how could he protest against it? He was his King's soldier, first of all)

Yuuri wanted only that from him – his loyalty, his protection…his role. The Maou's unswerving mien of  _friendship only_  spoke silent volumes to an off-balance Wolfram, finally dousing the infinitely tiny spark of hope that he had nurtured all the way through Yuuri's long absence. He'd silently given up, after a while, all for Yuuri's sake. He'd given in, admitted defeat, and would go when he was asked to, head high and without a single word against it - so  _why_  in Shinou's Name was the Maou messing with him  _now_? They had settled this over the passing months without ever even bothering to put it into actual words – why stir him up again when he'd finally accepted his limitations?

Wolfram's knees were a handy place to bang his head. He only wished they were harder so he could derail his thoughts altogether. He was supposed to be here in his studio in order to get away from Yuuri-the-strangely-affectionate-Maou, so why was he spending his stolen time gawking at Yuuri from a distance and lapping up the sight of sweat-curled hair and flexing forearms? Perhaps because his half-formed, half-Demon Fiancé of three years ago had transformed, Maou-like, into a handsome, broad-shouldered, virile King.  _Of course_  he was lusting. He'd lusted mightily when Yuuri was just adorable; why not admit this 'new' Maou made his – and every other blue-blooded Royal fiancé contender, ill-bred hussies that they were – knees go totally weak?

Wolfram gave up on the banging eventually and rested his chin on his knees instead, wrapping his arms around his shins to keep his balance. In the corner of his eye, the Maou had laid down his practice sword and was collapsed fully in the grass, laughing up at Conrad.

[Oh,  _me_. Look at  _me_  like that, Yuuri.]

Wolfram closed his infernal eyes, damning them for being watery, for seeing  _that_  from a distance; damning himself for hiding up here when he could've been down there, smiling back at his laughing fiancé.

"Stupid…." The tan buckskin of his trousers caught the moan, as well as the seeping moisture.

True, sometimes he lost it. The old jealousy swarmed into his bloodstream and made him see red; the old need for acknowledgement, acceptance, affection. He hadn't managed to excise it from his heart entirely, even with no fuel to feed the fire. And his was a passionate nature; how could he help it, being a fire-wielder? But he was getting better little by little – he  _was_. And Yuuri would think it was very odd if Wolf didn't react as he always used to when the stupid females crawled all over him – and Yuuri shouldn't look too closely at what he didn't want to see.

So…he'd ignore this latest kiss, just as he'd managed to turn a blind eye to so many other things since Yuuri's return. It meant nothing; it was only that Yuuri was finally paying attention to his maturing physical needs, that was all, and Wolfram happened to be handy and available…and attractive enough, he supposed, to not turn Yuuri off completely.

Besides, who  _else_  was Yuuri going to kiss other than his fiancé, after all? It wasn't like Wolfram had ever tolerated willingly the bevy of voluptuous available females who constantly invaded Blood Pledge. Certainly he did not now, when Yuuri was even more at risk of being taken advantage of by some traitorous harpy! So…those random kisses meant nothing deeper – it was merely Yuuri practicing to be an fully-fledged adult and Wolfram had happened to be the one lucky enough to be the dummy.

"Wimp!"

His knees steamed gently as he raised his blonde head sharply, nodding to himself.

" _Pervert!"_

{….And the memories of those kisses – those wonderful, soul-destroying, cock-throbbing kisses – well, they would keep him warm at night when Yuuri moved on, as inevitably he would. Wolf should be grateful for that. Yes, he should. Except that he  _wasn't_ ; no, not at all. He was  _angry_.}

So angry he could cry.


	4. Yuuri's Determination

"And, of course, then I had to say to Master Hiccup that the horse was not for sale!"

"You know Lady Persperina, don't you, Wolfie-darling? She's travelling to the Outer Reaching Islands to pursue her degree in winemaking. So admirable, don't you think?"

"Mama."

"—really, Heika, you shouldn't pay attention to what he's doing every single moment. That loafer is very able to take care of himself—"

"And this is our dearest Belinda. My dear, make your curtsy to Lord Wolfram, if you please." The balding, over-dressed noble bowed and rushed away, throwing himself bodily back into the social fray. Wolf sighed and came to attention, his booted heels clicking together.

Another hussy in the palace. He could do without it. Weren't there enough of them already?

" _Oooh_ , Lord von Bielefeld, I've heard  _soo_  much about you – your prowess in battle, your devotion to Yuuri Heika…your impressive  _fire power_." The red-head batted lashes thick with artificial lengthener. Wolfram nodded, not really paying attention. The wimp was speaking with Greta now, smiling down at her. Good.

Belinda tapped her dimpled chin with her fan, automatically flirting. The second-ranked Mazoku noble in the country would make a nice addition to her considerable list of conquests. She smiled sweetly, a come-hither look in her chestnut brown eyes.

"I've always heard fire wielders are  _passionate_  in every aspect of their lives….Tell me, Lord von Bielefeld, are you…otherwise involved? You must be – I know your engagement is merely a claver ruse to keep His Majesty safe. You can't possibly be keeping all that fire hidden away from the ladies? What a sad  _waste_  that would be!"

There was a flash of black and the swoop of an arm though the air, all in a twinkling. Wolfram found himself several feet physically removed from the advancing Lady Belinda, his heart unsteady in his chest.

"Quite  _passionate_ , miss, my Wolf-chan. I can attest to that," smiled the Maou, a proprietary arm firmly laid around Wolfram's green velvet shoulders. Wolfram gaped in a rather elegant fashion – Yuuri had been half a room away when he'd last glanced his way, just a moment ago. Why was he over here  _now_?

"In fact, I often say exactly that, right, Wolf-chan?"

Yuuri turned his sleek dark head and grinned wolfishly at his slack-jawed fiancé, his black eyes a tad uncertain. He very seldom – in fact, pretty much never – said anything of the sort 'cause  _his_  Wolf-chan would likely rip Yuuri's head off if he dared call him something so wimpy as 'passionate', but then again Gunter had just been teaching him about socially acceptable lying recently and he had to stick himself into this conversation somehow, didn't he? Besides, they'd danced the opening number at this reception and then Wolf-chan had wandered off almost immediately, coldly abandoning him to the horde. The young Demon King was a little annoyed – just a tad snappish. Wasn't Wolf-chan supposed to stick to his side? Like glue? Like a proper fiancé should? So, why was he over here flirting with Lord von Carapace's eldest daughter, then? Wolfram didn't flirt.

"Isn't that right, Wolfram?" Yuuri nudged his unresponsive companion with a slim hip, his minor irritation growing steadily when Wolfram didn't immediately leap to protest that their on-going betrothal was absolutely, utterly the 'real thing'.

He was being  _positive_  here – and  _very reassuring_. Why wasn't Wolfram reacting?

"You  _are_  a very passionate fiancé, no doubt about it." Yuuri's normally pleasant voice had dropped to a low growl…which, interestingly enough, had the effect of rendering its tone into something very  _sexy_  indeed.

Lady Belinda shivered and her brown eyes widened – the Maou sounded rather as though he  _enjoyed_  that 'passionate' aspect of Lord Wolfram von Bielefeld's personality…very much so! Who knew?

"H-Heika," Wolf choked under the increasing pressure of his betrothed's arm. It jiggled him a little at the formal address 'Heika' and he flushed, two high spots of color flaming across his abnormally pale cheeks.

"I meant… _Yuuri_."

Wolfram swallowed hard on the word, his white throat moving above the lace jabot. He was aroused, unbearably so, by a messy-headed black-eyed teenage boy in a snit. He was terrified that that same boy would notice— he felt horribly uncomfortable with all this unasked-for attention, a miasma of panic souring his stomach and climbing up his esophagus in a reverse acid-wash.

What was he supposed to say to  _that_? What did Yuuri  _want_  him to say?

The man of the hour only smiled at him, bland encouragement prominent in his lustrous obsidian eyes.

Gamely, Wolfram attempted to follow the lead he thought Yuuri had likely laid out, even if it trespassed far from the very limited privileges he allowed himself these days. Passionate, huh? This must be another of _those_  situations – perhaps Lord Carapace had another yet agenda for his official visit, one that involved a Royal son-in-law. Damn, but he was  _tired_  of hussies.

"Y-yes, I was just going to tell Miss von Carapace here that—that—"

Wolfram stopped mid-sentence and visibly struggled to start again. The Maou drew his brows together, his concerned black eyes sliding cautiously over to the curious face of the young lady bedecked in multitudinous puce flounces. She leaned forward in turn, obviously intensely puzzled over Lord Wolfram's paleness and inexplicable apparent loss for words, and once again Yuuri jerked the blonde back bodily, taking him out of her (possibly?) predatory grasp. The jolt had Wolfram talking again, like a wind-up toy with a spring finally come unstuck.

"T-that—I—that— _he_ —"

"I don't believe I've been introduced, Wolf-chan," Yuuri interrupted firmly, kindly cutting his fiancé off mid-stutter. The Maou seemed a little taller suddenly and there was a glitter of blue to his black hair. The air was fulgent with power and Wolfram snapped his jaw shut immediately, pale as a dead fish, and nodded gratefully after a tenuous split-second, grateful for a change of subject, pathetically happy to have the girl's overeager attention firmly directed away from his sudden inability to claim Yuuri as  _his_.

He wished he could be as smooth as Weller-kyo could in situations like these. He wished he could  _believe_  again – he'd been so happy back then, considering. So free. And why  _this_  again? Yuuri hardly needed to be concerned about someone as inconsequential as Belinda von Carapace.

….Of course, this girl was rather pretty in a common sort of way. Naturally Yuuri would wish to meet her – he  _liked_  pretty girls.

Wolfram's face was deadpan when he spoke again, dull as the green marble of his eyes.

"Y-Yuuri, may I introduce Miss Belinda von Carapace? She is the eldest of Lord Carapace's three daughters. The Carapaces live in Prispane and practice Earth Mazoku."

There, he had his voice back under control, successfully pretending that the arm around him wasn't there.  _What was Yuuri been thinking, bringing their so-called formal relationship up_ here _, in front of this lesser lord's floozy of a daughter?_  part of his mind questioned frantically as he continued the introduction with studied courtesy, nodding in the young Maou's direction.  _It made no sense at all!_

"Miss von Carapace, this is His Majesty, Shibuya Yuuri, the 27th Maou of Shin Makoku."

Still, he sounded perfectly normal, didn't he? Despite the heat of Yuuri's hip laid against his own, something which he was ignoring with all his might right now, like 'the arm'.

"My pleasure, Miss von Carapace," Yuuri tipped his head in pleasurable acknowledgement and smiled with his usual innocent charm. Wolf watched him out of the corner of his eye, waiting for him to take 'the arm' away. (The blue glow and the height difference must have been his imagination, right? The Great Maou had absolutely no need to appear in a situation like this one. Certainly, there was no threat of any sort  _here_ , in his Majesty's second-best ballroom, crowded with lesser nobles and all the most trusted members of the court! The only threat here was to Wolf's own peace-of-mind, sadly shattered of late by this too-cute young Maou. And  _why_ had his 'accidental' fiancé's arm around his shoulders suddenly become 'The Arm'? One would think it was some unnerving extension of the Great Maou's immense power, given how terribly…  _unsteady_  he felt right this moment. Perhaps he'd had too much to drink; his normally fine judgment was skewed or…or  _something_.)

The blonde gulped at the thought of what 'something' might be and swayed imperceptibly within the comforting, threatening weight that kept him clasped him tight against Yuuri's ribcage.

_Very, very nervous. Oh. My. Dear. Lord. Shinou, save me—!_

Yes.  _Yes!_  He'd escape as soon as this little ordeal of politeness was over with and flee forthwith to his old room for the remainder of the evening, safe from Shibuya Yuuris that acted oddly and Great Maou's that sent odd aches through his groin and heavily-painted hussies with designs on all available – and unavailable! – young men.

And Mama, who kept introducing him to those floozies.

And especially Yuuri, who was tormenting him merely by existing. Gods! What a  _wimp_!

Meanwhile, Yuuri and Miss Belinda had began a desultory conversation, chattering of inane things and smiling at each other charmingly right under Wolf's elevated nose. He didn't object, though. The last time he'd tried to object to a female getting too close to Yuuri, he'd been kissed very thoroughly. In public. And the time before that, too. It had been utterly demoralizing.

He'd had no morals left  _at all_.

Why was the wimp bothering with him, anyway? They'd done their duty dance an hour ago; Yuuri had alliances to firm up, nobles to greet. Wolfram was perfectly fine with staying on the sidelines and letting him do his job. Perfectly fine. He'd have the pleasure of being with him later, in the bedroom they still shared. He'd have the opportunity of listening to the Maou's even breathing as he slept; the chance to watch his face as he dreamed. No one else had that…yet. Only him.

And what would he do when Yuuri found someone he liked enough to, well,  _sleep_   _with_? Would the bedroom door be locked one night, stranding him out in the cold? Would he have to run and hide and lick his wounds in the safety of his old quarters or would he just fling himself out the third floor window then and there?

Wolfram swallowed back an unexpected sob and stood straighter in the circle of the Maou's arm.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid_. No, he wouldn't even think of dying. He'd die on a battlefield, as befitted a soldier. Right now he'd just endure.

"Wolf-chan?"

His name was being called. "Wolf," it said and he could hear the bleed of concern that colored it.

"Wolf?"

Yuuri frowned at Wolf-chan's hazily discontented expression and glanced thoughtfully over at Lady Belinda, a mischievous grin flashing across his mobile lips. His Wolf-chan must be feeling jealous again – it looked like he was doing all he could to mentally flee Lord Carapace's poor over-painted daughter. Wolfram  _really_  didn't like pretty girls.

"You have to forgive  _my fiancé_  – he always gets like this when I hold him close." The kiss laid on the pale pink lips of an unresisting blonde did nothing to muffle Murata's shout of laughter behind them.

Miss von Carapace gasped and went rather alarmingly bug-eyed.

" _Ohh, la, la_ , Wolfram, sweetie!" his mama piped up from her station at the buffet, eagle-eyed as always when it involved her precious children. "You have a live one there! Better keep him!"

_Wha—? Wah!_ _ **Wah!**_  Wolfram thought, as he came to, his mind forcibly wrenched away from the unpleasant vision of falling three long stories to the stony ground and cold obscurity and shoved into a much nicer universe where Yuuri, his accidental fiancé, was openly affectionate.

_He was drowning_  – that was his next thought, his silky hair tumbling back from his forehead as the Maou bent him back over The Arm and deftly inserted his tongue once again. Yuuri competently demonstrated that he could actually be quite a fast study in subjects that were of interest.

_What a great way to go!_  chimed in Wolfram's libido, rudely awakened once more by the irrepressible antics of one Shibuya Yuuri. That seemed to be his fate, being rudely awakened to all sorts of things by Yuuri—

Great escapes.

Daring rescues.

Humans that were just like Mazoku and Mazoku that had a lot in common with Humans.

Kisses, more drugging kisses…and a kindness that flowed deep into his very soul…

Wolfram opened his eyes a full sixty seconds later, gasping for air and determined to wake from this dream – nightmare –  _dream_  where Yuuri treated him like a real fiancé and wasn't afraid to show him how very much he was loved. The amused faces of the partygoers swung dizzily around him; Belinda dazzlingly red with embarrassment and backing rapidly away from the heavily involved Royal Couple as fast as she possibly could; his Mama approaching under full sail, a delighted smile on her red, red lips. The Great Sage was giggling hysterically into his wine cup and Gwendal was both smiling and frowning at the same time. Gunter was prone on the dance floor, blood pooling around his head, just as usual.

" _Yu-Yuur-Yuuri!"_

Wolfram struggled up at last, finding his feet, firmly disengaging his own tongue and turning his head to one side sharply to avoid the Maou's still-nibbling lips. The light flush on his cheeks only enhanced his package of Total Attractiveness.

"Yuuri,  _pay attention_! We're got company! We can't do this  _here_!"

A statement which did absolutely  _nothing_  to convince the inhabitants of Blood Pledge Castle that all bets were off when it came to the Maou's unwilling engagement. Wolfram blushed as soon as he realized how his outburst could be interpreted but Yuuri was entirely unfazed, for once. His Gunter-inspired plan was working really well, he was sure. Just look at Wolf-chan now, all relaxed and sparkly and completely  _un_ jealous!

"Later, then," winked the Demon King roguishly and spun a startled Wolf-chan upright and firmly into his black-clad arms. "We'll dance instead, okay?"

He nodded to the musicians and they obligingly began to play yet another slow waltz, one of his known favorites.

Yuuri appreciated that – he could manage most of the more elaborate court dances only with difficulty and he'd prefer to appear both  _positive_  and  _reassuring_  when he had Wolfram in his arms.

"Yuuri!"

Wolfram shrieked as he was whirled away, 'The Arm' now firmly attached to his trim waist. He could feel the heat from the Maou's fingers creeping perilously close to his hip in a manner that  _not_ regulation.

"You perverted,  _sex-mad_ , attention-seeking _, adolescent_   _ **wimp**_!"


	5. Yuuri's Desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *With a deep and reverent bow to Sir Terry Pratchett and Discworld™. 'Sapient pearwood' is not my creation, but instead the property of the aforeheretomentioned.

 

"Daddy Yuuri! Yay!"

The little brown-haired human girl flung her compact form off the stone bench where she and the Maou's fiancé had been huddled together and launched herself with total abandon into Yuuri's arms.

"Whoa!  _Greta_!"

The black-clad teenager barely caught her, staggering sideways under the impact and nearly falling over the bench beside him when his back and the edge of one shoulder rammed unexpectedly into the huge, gaudily decorated, brass-bound box that rested midway. But a gentlemanly hand was thrust out just in time, pale fingers snagging at the seam of Yuuri's uniform jacket, and the force of the muscular sword arm then thrown against his smarting spine kept the young Maou steady for that all-important split-second he needed to right himself, spin on his heel to face his accoster, and swing his giggling charge securely up on one dark-suited arm.

"Oh,  _oh –_   _sorry_ , Wolf-chan!"

The blonde finished straightening up from his sudden dive across the marble bench to save Yuuri and Greta, clearly deeply disgruntled because he'd nearly swallowed the golden-eyed needle carefully clamped between thinned lips  _as well as_  nearly losing the injured DoraBelle to the scuffed dirt of the pathway in the process. Glowering emerald eyes overflowing with silent ridicule flared in the Maou's direction when the boy King smiled at him apologetically. Yuuri grimaced, mildly miffed, and turned back to grin at Greta's eager face without bothering to follow his 'sorry' with a 'thank you'.

His daughter wriggled excitedly, sublimely unaware of the eddy of discontent in the atmosphere, pleased as punch to have both Papas in the same garden at the same time. She put in her best wheedling face, peeping up at Yuuri through long, curling lashes and tilting her head at an adorable angle.

"Daddy Yuuri, if you're done with your work already, will you come sit with us, please? Papa Wolf's almost finished helping me sew the eye back on DoraBelle and then we can all read a story together – I've got Anissina's new book!"

Yuuri hesitated, in no way as delighted as Greta with the prospect of wading through yet another paean to Anissina von Karbelnikoff's amazing brilliance, incredible intelligence and unending devotion to setting the Mazoku world straight on the rights of females everywhere. Her semi-fictional autobiographies always grated on his nerves when it was his turn to read them and he couldn't even calculate the degree of disgust his poor fiancé must feel, duty-bound to satisfy all of Greta's storytime requests when Yuuri wasn't around to share the burden. But, still, this was a rare chance for him to spend some precious private time with Wolf-chan and Greta – and he'd always enjoyed the sound of Wolfram's voice reading aloud, even if it was all about Anissina. His fiancé interjected so much energy and passion into the character's various voices they came to life in Yuuri's mind's eye, practically leaping off the pages of closely-lined typeset…and  _he_  could pronounce all those difficult descriptive Mazoku words that Yuuri still struggled with, even after years of Gunter's vigorous instruction.

Besides, the Maou was on a mission – two missions, really – and this invitation from his darling Princess could only help ensure success on both fronts. He grinned at the face of his incredibly cute adoptive daughter, completely missing Wolfram's quick nod of approval at her suggestion.

"Well, sure, Greta – if you've got room on the bench for me. Papa Wolf's taking up the whole thing, see?"

A wave of a black-suited arm indicated the occupied Wolfram, patiently juggling pincushion, thimble, spool and dolly in his manly lap, visibly making himself smaller in deference to Doria's sewing 'kit'. Yuuri snickered.

The blonde in question irritably squared his epaulet-covered shoulders and narrowed his emerald eyes to dangerous slits at any untoward implication in the laugh directed his way, but he had a strand of silk caught between his pearly white teeth, being in the midst of tying off a knot, and couldn't spit out any of the cutting words that he so patently wished to express. He clenched his jaw instead, nearly chomping the red thread in half, and pointedly ignored Greta's other father, concentrating instead on the injured dolly lying sprawled in his lap.

"Daddy Yuuri! Papa Wolfram _is_  as 'thin-as-a-rake' and – and 'spindly-as-a-mere-child'! You can't possibly say he's  _fat_!"

At once, Greta protested Yuuri's teasing, bravely rushing to defend her beloved and very bishonen  _other_  father from any imagined slur as to his weight or width and equally obviously quoting someone else's – an older authority's, obviously - words to do so:

"He needs to 'eat more, poor scrawny dear', or at least that's what Nanny Popper always says when she sees him, although she says that to  _me_ , too, all the time, and — and besides, it's _not_  Papa Wolfram _,_ Daddy – it's Doria's mending box!"

"Oh, erm, yes…"

The Maou cocked his head inquiringly, glancing again at the largish obstacle that persisted in preventing him from sliding handily onto the bench next to Wolf-chan and, ahem, endur- _enjoying_  the promised story, his lips tilted ruefully as he eyed the relative size of the sewing box as compared to his cute little girl and delightfully well-proportioned fiancé. Wolfram was not fat, nor thin. Wolfram was pretty much perfect...and he knew it, too, the irritating jerk.

"So it is."

Shin Makoku, Yuuri now knew, had a way of blowing the littlest things out of proportion – like thong underwear being a requirement for nobles and the weird, gender-bending courting customs of same – and emphasizing the supposedly mundane – like demon swords that constantly ogled one's fiancé behind one's back and official paperwork that seemed to magically multiply overnight, also behind one's back. For example, back on Earth his mother had a harmless little wicker workbasket, filled with needles and pins and ells of differently colored threads, a couple of socks to darn, maybe – here, in Shin Makoku, it was if the whole concept had gone nuclear and morphed to the size of a small, rather dangerous-looking pony, one which spit tangles of trailing threads and random yards of fabric from under its tightly closed lid. In fact, the more he examined it, the more this so-called 'sewing kit' worried him, 'cause it rather felt as though the sewing kit might be staring right back at him!

…And actually, if he peered at it from yet another angle, the wreath of sickly pink rosebuds painted in a curving line across the front resembled huge bicuspids and molars and those white-lacquered red-centered whorls in the wood above the roses were oddly reminiscent of gargantuan glaring eyes.

_Ewww!_

Yuuri shuddered, stepping back carefully, holding Greta well away from the weird box.

"That's, um, a very  _large_  box, isn't it?" Yuuri wriggled his black brows as he settled his lovely daughter a little comfortably in his arms. "And it, ahem, it looks kind of like it's…er,  _hungry_."

There was a significant pause, punctuated only by Wolfram's semi-stifled snort of patronizing amusement. The Maou ignored the Mazoku on the grounds of childish principle, his nose still out of joint from his fiancé's previous lack of pleasant greeting. Would've been nice if Wolf-chan had at least said 'hullo' or something like that when Yuuri showed up. Would've been nicer still if Wolf-chan had  _smiled_  at his fiancé, instead of glaring…

"…Nothing nasty's going to come out, is it, Greta?"

Yuuri blanched, suddenly recalling his last experience with large, forbidding wooden boxes, and eyed the hulking homemaker's accessory with a heightened sense of unease, vaguely wondering if he should ask Wolf-chan to shift farther away from the thing for safety's sake…though, knowing Wolfram, he'd just laugh in that annoying, uppity way of his and ignore Yuuri's wishes altogether.

Greta went off into fits of giggles, unable to answer, for behind Daddy's back there was Papa Wolf-chan, making faces and silently mouthing one unmistakable word: "Wimp!"

"Greta?"

"D-Daddy! You're such a s-silly-head!"

"Eh?" The black-haired boy regarded her with a puzzled look on his face, clearly clueless as to why he was suddenly a 'sillyhead'.

"That's sapient pearwood, Daddy – it won't hurt you, but of course it's going to keep its eye on you! It wants to know what you're  _doing_!"

"Oh? 'Sappy wormwood', is it? What's that, Greta? Wolf-chan?"

The Demon King turned from his daughter to his still very untalkative fiancé, clearly expecting some sort of explanation. It was Greta who answered him, patiently explaining the history of the unusual plant. Wolfram continued to determinedly ignore Yuuri, hoping against hope the Maou would be satisfied with the explanation and then go about his business, for he was just a little embarrassed at being doubly caught out, engaged both in such a menial task such as doll-mending  _and_  hopelessly spoiling his cute little daughter by doing so.

"I  _see_ ," the Maou laughed finally, his dark eyes twinkling, good humor restored now that he knew sapient pearwood was not at all dangerous in Shin Makoku, at least according to vetted reports from known experts such as Gunter. His earlier spark of annoyance at Wolf-chan's frigid and stand-offish demeanor had been forgotten in the meantime...mostly.

"I see now that you are absolutely right, Greta. Your very thin Papa Wolf-chan  _isn't_  the one keeping me from sitting next to my adorable princess and listening to him read Anissina-san's new, uh, 'epic' to us - it's that enormous cargo crate you keep calling a 'sewing kit'! Allow  _me_  to take care of this terrible obstacle to our happiness, my Princess! We must get this thing out of the way to make room!"

His fiancé's well-cut mouth twitched the tiniest bit in appreciation of Yuuri's credible imitation of von Kleist's trademark histrionics, but he kept his honey- blonde head down and his errant eyes focused on DoraBelle.

Yuuri eased Greta to her slippered feet a safe distance away from the nasty box and turned back to face it, flapping his hands about in a motion resembling a windmill's.

"Where else am I going to _sit_ , otherwise?! Papa Wolf's  _lap_? He'll  _hit_  me!"

Fooling around, Yuuri fell instantly into a clowning pose, aping the rugged stance of a steroid-pumped bodybuilder, swinging his cocked arms this way and that, all to keep his little girl laughing.

"But, but, but it  _is_  only a 'sewing box', Daddy," she gasped finally, leaning on the wide side panel of the wooden box to catch her breath. "Really!"

"Doria says she has all the mending for the entire Castle in there," the little girl continued, still giggly, watching her adoptive father once again flex his not particularly prominent biceps in preparation for shifting the maid's 'forbidden box'. She slipped deftly around him and plumped down next to it, giving the thing a fond pat. Yuuri could've sworn the box  _purred_.

" _All_  of it!"

"Ahem…I can definitely believe  _that_ , Greta; it's certainly heavy enough!" the Maou grunted, barely gaining purchase on the varnished gilded cherubim and decoupage cottage roses that made the monster sewing box into a designer's nightmare.

It creaked in a threatening way, the sapient pearwood unhappily aware that its being was being man-handled. An open zipper flailed out from the rim, wagging like a serpent's forked tongue. The struggling Maou regarded it with great distaste when it curled out curiously, whipping dangerously close to his nose, all unaware that Wolfram had given up his task momentarily to focus on his wimpy fiancé doings, emerald eyes wide with undisguised concern, and obviously ready to leap up and provide aid at the first opportunity.

"Yeesh!"

Greta giggled again.

Yuuri heaved and panted and wrestled, growling with increasing effort, till he finally managed to shove the carved and painted wooden monstrosity, fully the size of a small mortuary casket, lengthways into position, settling it with care so it wouldn't tip and fall, spilling ripped hose and rent bed sheets all over the garden.

"Good job, Daddy!"

The victorious Maou quickly edged onto the sun-warmed stone bench next to his fiancé the moment he was finished, still breathing hard. Wolfram, eyes once more downcast, shifted reluctantly over two grudging inches and continued to fulminate without speaking, shoulders hunched defensively, the red threaded needle he'd been using to patch up his adoptive daughter's doll now joined by three more dangerously sharp pins, all dangling fang-like from between his clamped lips.

It was obvious to Yuuri – now that he was actually paying attention - that Wolf-chan was horribly embarrassed to be discovered engaged in fixing up a little girl's ragdoll. It was equally obvious the blonde wouldn't mention his discomfort, for fear of hurting that same little girl's feelings. Yuuri grinned, for once feeling as though he had the upper hand over his muted fiancé, and wracked his brain for a  _positive_  conversation-starter. If his plan was going to work at all, Wolf-chan had to stop glaring at him.

"You sew?"

The Maou's dark eyes had fastened on his fiancé's and Wolfram wondered why they were suddenly so very warm when they'd been full of mischief a moment before – and annoyance, when Yuuri had first arrived.

He blushed hotly, and cast his green gaze down at the grubby toy held carefully between his immaculate knees. When the knot was complete and he'd centered DoraBelle's button eye to his satisfaction, pinning it just so, he drew the thread through the first hole daintily and finally deigned to answer Yuuri's question, his voice deliberately low enough not draw Greta's attention from her latest task. Their darling daughter was busily fussing with DoraBelle's rather extensive wardrobe – all of which had been freshly washed and mended and pressed free of wrinkles…and all by the capable hands of her doting Papa Wolf-chan, earlier that same morning.

Yuuri watched as Wolf-chan visibly quelled the becoming flush and gathered his usual dignity about him.

"Yuuri, every soldier in the field knows how to sew –  _and_  cook  _and_  care for their uniform. We all have some basic emergency healing techniques taught to us, too, you know – or you  _should_  know by now - along with a great many more  _other_  common domestic skills an army needs to endure long sieges and extended marches…so don't think I'm doing this because I actually  _like_  to sew! That's Gwendals' hobby, not mine!I  _paint_ , remember? I…just happened to be available this morning, that's all!"

All the while, though, Wolf-chan's long white fingers moved, deftly drawing the gold-tipped needle back and forth in delicate strokes. Yuuri's gaze wandered to the careful hands and rested on them contemplatively, fascinated. It sure looked like Wolf-chan was a great deal better at needle arts and fabric-wielding than the plushy-making, knit-happy Gwendal would ever be – at least, in  _his_ humble opinion. Probably, though, he shouldn't ever mention that conviction within his Chief Commander's hearing.

"Ah, o-kay, Wolfram," Yuuri responded, not rising at all to his fiancé's mild bait. "I was just curious."

_Very_  curious, in fact – Wolfram von Bielefeld did everything amazingly well, much better than Yuuri could ever hope to, he knew, but it was still surprising to see him at a task Yuuri traditionally assigned to women.

He guessed it was just another thing about Shin Makoku that was different from Earth – in a good way, of course.

"Well, don't be! It's nothing anyone wouldn't do!" Wolfram bridled, wrinkling his lovely straight nose, snorting in disgust at those invisible, vile persons who wouldn't take the time to help a little girl fix her favorite plaything.

"Hum," Yuuri nodded, though he was far from convinced that 'just anyone' would take such good care of their Greta. It was as if that 'other parent' she needed so badly to make up her new family had already been recruited, just by nature of their 'accidental' engagement.

"You're really good at it, though," he said after a pause, making some more conversation. Wolfram snorted again and shrugged off the compliment. He blushed a pretty rose shade, though, and Yuuri grinned to himself. Score!

"Not really. I bet you could be good at it too, if you tried, wimp."

So, how 'accidental' was all this, anyway? Yuuri had to ask himself. This...this 'thing' they had between them? In the beginning, the young Maou had wondered about that a lot, late at night after Wolfram kicked him awake and stole all the covers. He wondered why he didn't just get up and leave some days, find a new place to sleep, and walk away from the difficult, always annoyed, jealous, violence-prone, stunningly beautiful male who inhabited his bed.

"Nah. My fingers aren't that skilled. And I don't think I have the patience."

But he never did; never even  _considered_  doing that, even when they were first engaged. Wolfram would be heartbroken if Yuuri actually had the guts to remove himself from the bed they shared and Yuuri knew it. And he wouldn't even be able to blame him if his inadvertent fiancé finally gave into his repeatedly-mentioned urge to kill Yuuri out of sheer frustration – Yuuri would've deserved it, every kick and punch and stabbing-through with a sword-blade.

The Mazoku ex-Prince seated next to him shook his head in sharp negation, concentrating on the criss-cross of thread.

"Bet you could if you  _tried_ , Yuuri. You shouldn't say you can't  _do_  things if you haven't tried them  _first_."

Yuuri nodded, because he agreed with this, in theory at least.

Walking out on their relationship now would be a far cry from  _positive_  and  _reassuring_. He'd have failed, and he had the definite suspicion he'd not only be failing Wolfram but also the larger, far more powerful being who'd engineered this whole farcical situation in the first place. And besides, he'd already tried walking out, and look where  _that_  had gotten him.

"Is that how you got so good at so many things, Wolf-chan? Trying?"

The blonde scowled at the 'chan.' He never knew how to take the pet names Yuuri had brought with him from Japan and so he didn't trust them, naturally.

Shinou. That bastard Shinou was the one who'd done this to them, binding the two of them together so tightly that Yuuri couldn't forget and couldn't avoid – and no longer even wanted to.

"Shut up! I'm not good at a lot of the stuff I've attempted – Conrad's always going to beat me when it comes to swordsmanship, for instance, and Gwendal's much better at strategy – but that doesn't mean I'm going to give up without trying! You should do the same, Yuuri Heika."

The blonde ducked his head and examined the interwoven threads carefully, making sure there were no mistakes.

" _I'll_  help you," he murmured into the small silence his outburst had created, so softly that Yuuri nearly didn't hear him. The Maou silently pondered Wolf-chan's offer, well aware that the conversation they'd just amicably engaged had little, if anything, to do with sewing.

Well, maybe it did. Mom had told him long ago that 'things', once mended, were actually far stronger than they'd been in their original, unbroken state. That would explain why the rest of his sock always wore out before her lumpy darning did…and why he had to be so very careful with Wolfram this time around.

"There," murmured the excellent swordsman-cum- _hausfrau_  who sat next to him, pleased with his accomplishment. "Finished."

DoraBelle was held up the next moment and carefully turned this way and that and then Wolfram's white teeth snapped, neatly slicing the end of the thread. He called up a tiny sapphire-blue flame and burned off the trailing thread with one careful fingertip. A delighted Greta turned her tousled head and watched Wolfram closely, ' _oohing'_  and ' _ahhing_ ' as she always did when Papa Wolf-chan used his element, and Yuuri did the same, though he simply grinned his pleasure. Wolfram was a real treat to be with when he wasn't yelling.

And Wolf-chan loved him, beyond reason.

Shinou was to blame for this…well, sort of. Probably, Yuuri should be  _angry_  – certainly he _had_  been, for a very long time. Who would ever want to be bound for a lifetime to a spoiled pretty boy from a strange and dangerous world when one was only fifteen and hadn't even dated  _girls_? What self-respecting Japanese teenager would even consider gay marriage – and all the ickyness that must entail - with a ruthlessly jealous, fire-wielding, spoiled pretty boy from some other weird planet?

Oh,  _yeah_ , he'd been righteously pissed-off. But…but not enough to call it off  _immediately_ and hurt Wolframs' feelings (even before he realized Wolf-chan had, erm,  _feelings,_  he kind of, sort of,  _absolutely knew_ his bluntly honest fiancé had to be experiencing some major emotional upset about that unfortunate slap); or maybe make the delicate blonde lordling look bad in front of his family and those other very intimidating nobles (how little he had understood them all then!) and then still later, many months after that, not enough to make it a big deal when he'd finally had the chance to confront Shinou in person.

They'd had a little chat, the Original King and he, floating there in the swirling mist of timeless nothingness. It had been eye-opening, to say the least. And Shinou's vaguely mocking words had made Yuuri angrier still, for he truly  _had_  been forced into an engagement he never would've chosen if it had been solely up to him.

But he hadn't – it wasn't -  _that_ was the whole point, according to that blonde bastard who looked so much like  _his_ Wolfram.  _He_  hadn't consciously chosen on that momentous evening of flying silverware and full-body slaps – but his red-thread-tied heart had, or so said Shinou, who went on to smugly admit he'd used that handy coincidence for his own devious purposes. It had been Yuuri's immortal soul which – who— had done the choosing, flinging out an arm and whacking Wolfram good and hard, practically as soon as the opportunity arose.

_He's_ _ **mine**_ _– claim him!_   _No one shall ever have him but_ _ **me**_ _!_

It had been rather frightening, the blonde, blue-eyed bastard admitted, hearing the roar of the Great Maou's furious spirit…until Shinou, always scheming, realized that here was useful knowledge indeed. As for Yuuri, to learn from the Original King himself that he would've picked Wolfram anyway, no matter what circumstances, friend or foe, male or not male, this world or that – that was the eye-opening bit.

Not that the knowledge had made him all that happy. Oh, no, it wasn't even remotely that simple.

That bitterness had lingered, burning in his chest like a badly banked fire, for he hated being forced, even by the Shinou, even by himself. It must've toasted the edges of his and Wolfram's relationship all along, Yuuri believed, that little thread of tetchiness that wound through their engagement as surely as the binding red thread of yore and legend, and, like Wolfram's famous jealousy, the _soupçon_  of annoyance had become ingrained in Yuuri's behavior towards Wolf-chan, just as damaging to Wolfram as Wolf-chan's nagging, completely unfounded jealousy was to him. It was likely one of the reasons he'd so much trouble even considering the engagement as anything more than a joke or an inconvenience. It was most definitely  _the_  reason he'd put off any real possibility of marriage between them–

He'd fought so very hard against the two of them: Shinou and his own hidden heart.

But two years was a long time to be ticked off, even if it was only the tiniest spark. Yuuri frowned at himself – he didn't like being angry, ever, for it did no one any good in the end.

It wasn't Wolfram's fault, of course. Never had been, and Yuuri knew it. Wolf-chan had just been the unfortunate tool of Shinou, if this was indeed a giant cosmic conspiracy. Most likely he'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, if it wasn't. Doomed to love now by a past he most certainly did not remember; doomed to be rejected by a Earth-influenced culture he had nothing to do with.

For a while after this revelation and his gradual acceptance of it Yuuri had toyed with the thought that the Mazoku's lack of knowledge about their shared past might be a very good thing in the long run – it might make it a little easier to stomach, his driving need to finally make it up to Wolfram, his conviction that he had to  _do something_  - to _reassure_  Wolf-chan and be  _positive_  about this new turn in the road of their relationship, and consciously correct Yuuri's mistakes of two years ago and the errors of millennia before that. It would definitely make it easier for Wolf-chan to accept what Yuuri was now willing to give. Who needed four thousand years of regret hanging over one, anyway? Certainly _not_  his Wolf-chan.

After all, it was a done deal, wasn't it? Out of his control on every level, totally. The Great Sage had said so, albeit obliquely. And Gunter had pretty much confirmed upon his return that he'd have to accept it, sooner rather than later, 'now' as opposed to 'sometime down the road'. It was a matter of state, a matter of peace. There was no going back now, not since Yuuri hadn't said one single negative word to end the assumption everybody in his immediate circle appeared to entertain - that their engaged status was a definite 'go', a fact, a definite. Yuuri's golden opportunity to insert a lengthy intermission into his and Wolf-chan's relationship, if not a full 'halt, cease-and-desist', had slipped away, unnoticed. Once engaged, always engaged: the world, according to Gunter.

Yuuri wondered why he didn't  _really_  regret it…to be married so young, with no opportunity to discover another (girls, at least, lovely  _girls_!) – no, he  _knew_ why he didn't regret it. He hoped very strongly that Wolf-chan wasn't the one regretting it now.

"Greta, here. DoraBelle's ready to read with you. "

The pale hands moved out of Yuuri's vision, Wolfram leaning over to present Greta with her dolly and drop a tiny paternal kiss on her brown curls in passing. She squealed in delight and hugged the restored DoraBelle within an inch of her stuffed life and then did the same to Papa Wolfram, who suffered it with a smile on his uber-handsome face and a fatherly glow in those remarkable green eyes.

Yuuri looked away, tears pricking the corners of his own dark ones. Sometimes it ached far too much to just watch these two. They seemed far more real to him than Miko and Shori and his own father did, in distant Japan.

Greta and Wolf-chan were happily occupied with dressing the naked DoraBelle again, buttoning minute black buttons and tying tiny bows, chattering over her as if the little dolly was a real, live person with a mind of her own. Greta fussed with her twisted yarn hairdo and Wolfram smoothed it out for her, tidying DoraBelle up just as he tidied Yuuri every morning, his pretty face intent, focused on Greta with loving interest. The Maou unconsciously shifted a little closer to the two of them, still without glancing over, wanting to be part of that nice, warm feeling.

It felt so darned good to be spending time with his own little family. He'd missed it so much he hadn't even been able to express his utter longing and relief upon his return, only hugging Greta for absolute ages and stumbling after his retreating fiancé like an imprinted duckling when he'd finally managed to haul his vastly surprised person out of the courtyard fountain.

"Like this, Greta. Pull the ribbon through here so there's a little loop left over," Wolfram's voice at his side gently guided their daughter. Yuuri grinned like a moron and inched over little more, most definitely in the soldier's 'personal space' now. He put a casual hand behind him, ostensibly to prop himself up on the narrow bench, and it landed perilously near Wolfram's nicely rounded bottom.

A curious fingertip slid over the leather of Wolf-chan's swordbelt.

It was funny how his sojourn on Earth had mellowed the anger he'd carried within him. Being without Wolf-chan had been unbearably lonely and eerily sad – far more so than even he had expected at the initial moment of departure. His foolish heart had ached constantly, though he'd been more than happy at first to get back to 'normal' things, like baseball and schoolwork and the silliness of his family life. He hadn't slept properly, though; hadn't enjoyed his food, hadn't ever stopped looking over his shoulder for the blonde who was supposed to be there.

"Papa Wolf?" Greta looked up, seeking help with a tiny necklace that she couldn't manage. Her father smiled and did the clasp up, using the excuse of peering down at the miniscule metal loop to shift his seat away from Yuuri's hand.

_Was this love?_

"There! All dressed up and ready to read a story with us, Greta. Where is Anissina's latest masterpiece?" Wolfram smiled as he said it but Yuuri knew that his fiancé would far prefer to read the old Mazoku fairytales than Anissina's wildly overblown tales of her own prowess. He frowned on Wolfram's behalf and scooched over again, this time fetching up squarely against his fiancé's flank. Wolfram froze, along with his fond smile.

"Yuuri!" It was venomous hiss this time and a rather nasty glare. The Maou merely smiled in return and raised a dark eyebrow inquiringly, nodding slightly in the direction of their daughter.

_True love?_

"Here, Papa. Oh, I can't wait!"

Papa Wolfram hastily took the hot-off-the-presses signature first edition and opened it without further ado. He began reading, his voice soft and lyrical despite his obvious tension, and Greta leaned her head against his arm, hugging DoraBelle hard during the exciting bits. Yuuri listened too, with half an ear, his mind drifting again to his seemingly unsolvable problem.

_Oh, yeah, it_ was _….damn that conniving Shinou!_

All well and good to figure out (mostly, sort of, probably) how he actually  _felt_  about his 'accidental' fiancé while he was safely back in Japan. But when he'd returned to Shin Makoku he hadn't known what to do. Other than that one initial bout of tears and smiles and retributions, Wolfram had closed up, tight as a clamshell, and refused to discuss their relationship at all. Actually, it wasn't even that he  _refused_  – it was simply that there was never the opportunity. Sir Wolfram was training his elite guard; Wolf-chan was reading to Greta; his Lordship the ex-Prince had departed for the border, patrolling; Lord von Bielefeld was in the stables, the garden, the village – everywhere that Yuuri wasn't, unless he was absolutely required to. And though he still shared Yuuri's room most nights and perforce Yuuri's bed, he was always 'asleep' well before or long after the equally busy Maou came to bed.

Oh, and when he  _was_  around (Yuuri frowned at that – wasn't Wolf-chan supposed to be his  _personal_  bodyguard? So why was it always Conrad or Gunter or Gwendal these days?) he acted like he always had, kind of, but his heart clearly wasn't in it. The jealousy was for show, the rants a tepid imitation of the glorious diatribes he'd come up with before Yuuri had left for Earth. There was no  _fire_ anymore, no  _energy_. None of the customary fierceness that had always lit up Wolf-chan like an internal bonfire. The young Maou had become sadly convinced that his fiancé was now merely going through the motions, playing a foolish caricature of the role he'd thrown all his considerable passion into the days and months before Yuuri had chosen that final departure to Earth.

It wounded the Demon King deeply, this quiet avoidance of Wolf-chan's. He had mistakenly thought things would be the way they always were and that he'd have tons of time to lead up to this gradually. But suddenly there was no time anymore. Suddenly he needed a game plan, having never in his life wooed anyone. Heck, he hadn't even figured out basic flirting yet! He hadn't even known where to start.

Perhaps Gunter wasn't the best person to consult about matters of the heart but his only other options were either that pervert Murata-kun or one of Wolf-chan's brothers. Or Oniisan, gods forbid! Not much choice, there.

"…and at last the sandbear bowed its head in deep shame, having realized the truth of our heroine's words. They should _indeed_  play nicely, all together."

Wolfram's voice entered his conscious mind again and the Maou found that he had leaned in, just like his daughter, and was sticking with all his might to Wolfram's other arm, his errant hand now laid familiarly along the waistband of his fiancé's trousers. The ex-Prince's face was a study in fine control as he finished reading Anissina's final words.

_Good. That's the way to do it, Yuuri. Keep at it._

"…and then our heroine tossed her long silky swathe of red hair over her shoulder and rode off into the sunset in her patented Make-Me-Go-kun, leaving the happy villagers and the reformed sandbear chanting her name behind her, full of deep admiration. The end."

Greta smiled dreamily, clearly still imagining herself in her hero's shoes. She didn't notice that one father was glaring daggers at the other, his deep green eyes positively incandescent with fury…and some other emotion, equally hot.

"Greta," Yuuri began, and the ten-year-old gave herself a startled little shake and peered at him around the front of Papa Wolfram's coat, "Greta, I think Grandma Cheri has a little present for you and DoraBelle—" this was what Yuuri had been 'officially' sent out to the garden for in the first place, as the former Maou (and his future mother-in-law) had no hesitation whatsoever in sending him on errands that would bring him in conjunction with her little 'Wolfie', bless her large, free-loving heart – "so, you should go and find her."

_Steady! Nerves, don't fail me now!_

"Yuur- _rii_ ," Wolfram snarled, his nostrils flaring. "Greta—!"

"Immediately, Greta. She might forget." Yuuri wasn't above a little subterfuge to get what he wanted – and what he wanted now was Wolfram, alone in the garden.

_Hang in there, Yuuri – you can do it!_

Preferably calm and happy. A little  _reassurance_  wouldn't come amiss right now and he didn't want to waste the opportunity to be  _positive_. He needed every opportunity he could grab hold of, apparently.

" _Oooo_! Oh! Papa Yuuri, excuse me – thank you, Papa Wolfram!"

She was off, running fleet-footed for the Castle, waving DoraBelle about madly in her effort to express her appreciation while still exiting at high speed. Grandma Cheri always had the best presents!

_Ready, set—_

"Yuuri," Wolfram started again, ready to castigate his wimp for being overly friendly before the innocent eyes of Greta and at the same time futilely attempting to remove himself from Yuuri's entangling arm, the one that had slid firmly around him while he was distracted, watching Greta take off.

_Go for it!_

"Yuuri— _umph_!" Wolf struggled, but not too hard, for as always where Yuuri was concerned his baser instincts won out over his strongest resolve.

The Maou was kissing him again, much more forcefully now, having taken a sharp breath while he tugged Wolfram's slim body in a better – more accessible- position and wrapped both arms about him. The blonde sighed and groggily closed his eyes, fading fast. He had – as he'd demonstrated multiple times to date – absolutely no defense against an amorous Yuuri.

"Yuuri…!" A breathless little moan issued from the Mazoku's parted lips and he nestled into his fiancé's arms, much to Yuuri's delight.

_Jackpot!_

A crafty hand tugged at the hem of Wolfram's white military-cut shirt, loosening it from the waistband of his tight, jodhpur-style pants. It snuck under the thin material, brushing across Wolfram's smooth skin like an errant, ticklish feather, and then it settled over his pounding heart.

" _Hmmm_ , Wolf-chan" Yuuri murmured, eyes opening as he noticed the rollicking beat. The demon in his arms groaned, eyes squinched shut and rosy lips blindly seeking his fiancé's, for Yuuri had pulled back in surprise at the heartbeat he'd discovered.

_Poor Wolfram_ , the Maou thought hazily, giving once again into the lure of the gorgeous face below his, turned up like a flower seeking the sun.

_Poor Wolf-chan, he must feel like he's going to have a heart attack_.

Yuuri's own heart, racing madly along at breakneck speed, was another point of concern, but he bravely ignored it. Too many things felt good right now – Wolfram's skin, Wolfram's mouth, Wolfram's chest, Wolfram's bottom. His hands, Yuuri discovered, had a life of their own and it was a prurient, sensation-seeking life. They found nipples under the shirt and tweaked them into rigidity, making Wolf-chan gasp and twitch; they found the hardening mound in Wolfram's tight trousers and squeezed it, too, stroking and rubbing, so that his fiancé wrenched his shivering body across the incredibly tiny gap that remained between them and practically threw himself onto Yuuri's lap, panting and making the most endearing little noises Yuuri had ever heard. They found the curve of the young Mazoku's spine a moment later, tracing it with such tender intensity that his warrior prince arched and murmured wordlessly, offering himself up without reservation. And they deftly probed the heated cleft skin-tight buckskins outlined, so that his beautiful Wolfram melted to passionate jelly under Yuuri's curious fingertips.

Wolfram purred acquiescence to the invasion, his eyes green slits of passion, and used his own calloused, fastidious hands, tentatively caressing the angles of Yuuri's face as they kissed with a barely checked ferocity and then clinging to Yuuri's shoulders when the devilish fingers of his fiancé learned the pathways of his primary erogenous zone.

The tan trousers were damp in seconds and Wolfram was muttering " _Yuuri, Yuuri, please, Yuuri_ " over and over again against his fiancé's flushed throat, writhing fitfully in his lap. Yuuri barely heard him, occupied with the practical difficulties of too much fabric and not enough skinship.

The wide leather belt was undone and pulled free, Wolfram's dress sword clattering against the grain of the marble; the tight regulation pants rapidly unbuttoned and hauled down the bones of a pelvis already rocking in sweet anticipation. Raw spit and a lick to Yuuri's perspiring palm; a few quick strokes to get the rhythm going and the once martially-disciplined form of Wolf-chan was shivering uncontrollably, the slight weight and boundless heat of him slumped fully in Yuuri's obsessive grip.

Yuuri hauled in panicky gulps of floral-scented garden breezes in blatant relief and concentrated solely on bringing his fiancé pleasure, as much as he possibly could in the shortest possible time, for there was the driving command within him to  _do this now!,_  using every trick he'd ever learned in the relatively short time he'd spent learning his own lonely satisfaction: a quick teasing twist at the end of a long, sensuous slide; the swell of a thumbprint pressed firmly into the leaking slit that bucked fiercely into his slippery palm; the quick curl of fingers 'round and about the heavy weight of the delicately furred scrotum Yuuri instinctively groped for beneath the marbled length rippling sinuously between his knuckles.

An open-jawed kiss to devour, to brand and to worship; the flex and hungered grasp of his feverish fingers against the giving flesh of Wolf-chan's supple asscheeks; the reassuring palm strokes up the length of his fiancé's bared back, sweat-damp under the heedless flap of the gaping uniform shirt: all of these small, still mostly untried acts of need and desire given – no,  _thrust upon_  his willing partner at breakneck speed, with as much gentleness as Yuuri could muster with his own pulse thrumming madly in his flaming ears and his own seething body twitching untouched and ignored into a state of dazzling white-lit vertigo above an oxygen-stealing plane.

Yuuri heaved one final time against the chilly stone bench seat beneath him, straining hips clamped tight-hot around his Wolfram's shifting thighs, and clutched his brand-new lover to his laboring chest with a fond arm spun of tensile steel, still doggedly fisting, coaxing, drawing Wolf-chan right along with him down this unfamiliar path to this unmapped territory that lay virgin before them. And when Wolfram jerked convulsively in his arms a gasping half-second later, brilliant emerald eyes wide as saucers and blind with sensual satiation, Yuuri's name the only sound to shatter the humid air between them, the young Maou felt quite justifiably proud of himself.

He had done it. A homerun with all bases loaded; aces on every final; a newfound land of peace and contentment. All of this was his now, his and Wolfram's.

Yuuri held his still-quivering fiancé's body with the care one lavishes on priceless  _objets d'arte_ , wordlessly caressing the graceful limbs that so trustfully splayed against his own, the reddened curve of a mouth that still weakly sought his as if for sustenance in starvation, and was vaguely aware that some more experienced, more  _knowing_  part of himself was already thoughtfully planning the next occasion in which he might put his most successful plan to date into action.

Still, this had been, Yuuri decided – when he was capable of deciding anything – the most  _positive_ ,  _reassuring_ moment he and Wolf-chan had ever shared. He couldn't wait for more.


	6. Wolfram's Weakness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Re time-line & canon, this is set after the events of the 2nd Season and pretty much ignores Saralegui and the events of the 3rd. Yuuri's return to Earth took just about a year in Shin Makoku time in this universe and approximately 8 weeks or so in Earth-time: I have two fics that explore further the time Yuuri and Wolfram spent apart, to be posted at some point. 'Kiss & Tell' is obviously AU-ish and only vaguely compliant with canon after Season 2, but I am inpatient and would rather consummation sooner than later, jah? As of 'K&T''s telling, Yuuri is approximately 17 years old; it has been 3 Shin Makoku years since he became Maou (including the time back on Earth) and both he and Wolfram have matured somewhat from the time they first met, both physically and emotionally. Understandably so: no one is quite the same person at 17 or 18 as they are at 15 or 16.

"Damn him!"

Wolfram bowed his head towards the velvet dark beyond the reach of the torchlight's warm glow and gripped the ballroom balcony's scalloped stony edge hard enough to score his palms.

" _Damn_  him! That wimp!"

He wished he'd been drinking from that single glass of wine he'd carried with him all evening long – at least that would've been a valid excuse. But he hadn't and there simply was no excuse – other than his undying passion for a certain idiotic, ill-mannered, annoyingly maladroit teenage Maou.

He was pathetic, Wolfram knew, falling right back into Yuuri's innocently _evil_  clutches like that, the little dignity he had left to call his own fleeing him the moment those soft lips claimed his.  _He_  was the idiot, for he still had no idea what Yuuri meant by it, if even the Maou meant anything at all, and he could no more trust the beguiling warmth in Yuuri's black eyes than he could willingly turn away.

It scared him. Who was he kidding? It frightened him senseless. He was stricken by the thought that Yuuri might realize how much he still—

What if they _all_  knew and joked about it behind his back?

Poor, foolish Wolfram, still carrying the torch.

Poor deluded Wolfram, so willing to be persuaded that there was more than mere – mere physical desire to these…these unfortunately public interludes…so exceptionally easy to use as the diversion he was. He'd be a veritable laughingstock if all his secrets were so widely known…if he wasn't already.

Wolfram wrapped his arms around himself at the chill of his regret, clutching a stomach that suddenly lurched. Or was it his chest, where his stupid heart still trembled hopefully? This evening's kiss –  _so much more than a mere kiss, by Shinou's Blade!_  – had been a real humdinger – deep and searching, drawing out all the tender, passionate feelings Wolf was sure he'd stuffed back inside, winkling out the last of his pathetically flimsy defenses and baring all that he was before Yuuri's kind and cryptic gaze. It had been only the barely choked-back chuckles emanating from the Great Sage's direction that saved him from the final humiliation before company.

He would have said it, confessed it, let it flow from his lips as naturally as his own breath – "I love you, Yuuri, I love you, love you; I'd  _die_  for you!" – and then been greeted with…nothing. Blank silence, perhaps; an embarrassed arching of black brows, shuffling feet and Yuuri's signature 'I-don't-know-what-to-do-now' blush; muffled derision from those courtiers who didn't like him very much and wanted him out of the Royal Portrait even more.

He didn't understand.  _His_  Yuuri wasn't cruel, or at least never deliberately so. His Yuuri wouldn't even think to mock him, wouldn't damage his heart so carelessly – then why,  _why?_   had it happened again?

He'd barely survived the last kiss.  _More than a kiss_ , his groin reminded him fiercely,  _oh, my gods, so much more_ , and he flushed in the damp embrace of nightfall, shivering anew. He'd had to hide himself behind the fortunately out-sized sewing kit Doria had lent him just to return safely to the castle and then he'd been forced to use it as an ungainly shield all the way through the winding hallways of his childhood home, all due to the tattletale stain that had seeped through his uniform trousers.

He'd been stripped of all reason by then, his fabled pride in tatters. He'd been soiled with his own pleasure – and Yuuri's, _Yuuri's!_  – and capable of nothing more than stumbling into the Royal Baths and hiding out there for hours and hours, cringing every time he'd imagined a noise at the door. He'd practically whored himself for Yuuri's sake; he'd been unable to stop it, could hold nothing back; he had never, _ever_  realized such pleasure even  _existed_  in this workaday, practical world.

It was wondrous to feel such things at another's hands – Yuuri's hands,  _Yuuri's!_  – but so very unwise. It could mean nothing; it was only a rutting, as peasants and commoners did, or the courtiers, dallying; it had been so impossibly perfect he had no words to tell how he'd felt, how it had marked him. It was shame and impropriety of the worst sort; it was paradise and Yuuri the author; it was all he'd ever dreamed of… except his dreams had always fallen so far short.

Those moments –  _that terrible incident! that shame!_ \- haunted Wolfram incessantly through the remainder of the day. He'd find himself reliving the time in Yuuri's lap – the kisses, the hands _, Yuuri wrapped around him!_  – over and over again, misty with the telltale flush of recent desire, achingly needy for more. An informal dinner with friends and family, seated by the side of the very person responsible for all this overwhelming  _feeling_ , had been sheer and unadulterated torture. It had been next to impossible to sleep beside Yuuri last night and equally difficult to slip at dawn's light from their shared bed this morning, pillow hard against his sticky thighs to hide the damning evidence.

Nearly another full day had passed before he felt calm again, even marginally; having wrestled every one his automatic defenses and sensible discourses into rank as he trained his cadre at a frantic pace, an impregnable wall erected brick by painful brick and armored with an arsenal of polite and proper behavior – and then Yuuri had gone and done it again! Kissed him nearly senseless and speechless in front of dozens of gaping people – strangers and foreigners and those who knew him and those who cared not a fig for their troubles and even his very own child, his darling Greta! – kissed and kissed him until he could but barely stand on unsteady legs and do naught but keep his eyes firmly shuttered so he wouldn't have to see all their faces, staring. And then been courteously handed a full wineglass and left behind with a shy smile, for there was absolutely no end to those who wanted the company of Wolfram's charmingly naive fiancé and he – he! The Fiancé! - had not dared say a word to keep the so-popular young Maou for himself!

And now he was  _doomed_ , for he couldn't leave the balcony in his present overwrought condition and he didn't dare sneak back to their shared bedroom after what had just happened. There was a limit to what he could ask of himself and he'd just run smack into it, head first.

"Blasted horny ingrate! Pervert! Rascal! Irresponsible scoundrel! Oh, gods!  _Gods!_  Why do you  _do_  this to me?!"

Wolfram buried his face in his stone-bitten hands and sagged against the balustrade, defeated, his fogged mind fruitlessly casting about for some means of escape. Gwendal's rooms were out of the question; he'd flay Yuuri alive if he knew what had happened between them only just yesterday – kisses were one thing, but yesterday!

Conrad was equally unthinkable; Wolf was in no state to keep up a cool front before the penetrating eyes of his older little brother. Gunter could not even be considered, nor could his own mother; the barracks were full of curious eyes and speculating soldiers, all agog for the latest gossip.

"Why do I always _let_  you?" Wolf demanded fiercely of the flickering sconces and the velvet shadows wavering only a breath away from the balcony's edge, but the night offered no reply, no more than his own traitorous body had already given.

He knew his rooms would be first place Yuuri would look for him if he wasn't to be found in their bedroom, provided that he could manage to make his way through the hallways without exciting rude comment. Same for his studio, even more inaccessible if one were attempting to disguise the overwhelming physical effects of a telling weakness for one impossible person.

"…I just… don't understand you," he told the adamantine railing and the flagstones and the parapets but, like Yuuri, they returned no easy answers.

Perhaps an evening spent in the safety of the stables might be the best thing, then, for he absolutely couldn't face Yuuri now. He couldn't face  _anyone_  now and still expect to hold his head up in the morning.

"Wolfram?"

Warm arms slipped around him, black silk hissing against the royal blue velvet that complimented Wolfram's fair complexion so very well.

"You alright? Erm…I didn't mean to startle you earlier, you know. I just wanted to, um, make sure they all knew  _who_  you were. Um. Was that  _bad_ , what I did?"

Wolfram stilled, his emerald eyes fixed on nothing in particular, scuffed hands limp where they rested, and then he croaked: "Yuuri?"

"Hmm? Who  _else_? Hey, Wolf-chan, _are_  you okay? You didn't come back and I got kind of worried, so, eh….well?"

"Well,  _what_?" Wolfram found that it was possible to inhale again. It was also possible to sound irate, even though he was very far from that feeling. He was more….what was the word? Grateful, perhaps? No, that wasn't it.

Yuuri nuzzled his dark head into the curve of Wolfram's pale cheek. His lips brushed the dampness that Wolfram hadn't the chance to swipe off surreptitiously.

_Joyful. Profoundly joyful. That was the term he wanted. He'd felt as though he'd been on a jagged precipice, ready to plunge to his singular messy death, and this time—_

_This time it was Yuuri who'd reached out that all-important hand— who'd just saved him. How pathetically poetic._

"Okay, I  _knew_  you weren't alright. Tell me what's wrong, Wolf-chan," the black-haired boy nagged, tugging his unresisting fiancé even closer, his whispering voice hot in Wolfram's ear. "What's going  _on_? Did I do something?"

_Quite the Great Big Maou now_ ,  _aren't we?_  mocked the leaden, poisonous voice that still existed somewhere small and bitter within a Wolfram very far adrift from his own self-delineated boundaries. It was the same one that cried 'Shame!' when he remembered what Yuuri's hands had done to his person.

_Actually_ caring  _about the whereabouts and wellbeing of your unwanted fiancé._

But his cold hands were already in motion without his conscious volition, laying themselves gently over Yuuri's where they grasped Wolf's slim waist. A tendril of proud admiration for Yuuri's evident concern spiraled through the very back of Wolfram's mind, choking out the spurt of defensive anger he'd been futilely attempting to fan to fitful life. But…there really was no more  _anger_ left within him. Perhaps the hours in the baths had washed it away…or perhaps it was the warmth in Yuuri's hands. Wolf didn't know; he didn't care anymore. It was no longer important.

_You are just…so innately noble and so protective of all of us…and caring_.  _Always caring._   _No wonder we love you in return and would follow you anywhere._

_Perhaps…just perhaps it's acceptable to feel this way. This weakness, this need. Since it's you. Perhaps it's something…something I can do…just for you. Only for you. Yuuri._

Wolfram edged back, the heat emanating from his obviously concerned fiancé a balm to his own rawness, his lack. Maybe it  _was_  weak, maybe it was just Yuuri being 'nice' or 'friendly', but he needed it right now. For once, he'd take it.

"Nothing, wimp. I'm perfectly fine."

_Strong_ , the tiny soliloquy ran on and on, in counterpoint to the fading rancor,  _and taller than me now. He's got those long arms – good for fencing, like Conrad's – good for holding on to people_.

"You're  _sure_ , Wolf-chan?"

The Maou's voice was soft and hesitant and still right in Wolfram's ear. It found its way straight his heart and warmed that, too, in passing.

It really didn't matter if Yuuri didn't realize how much that meant to him, Wolf knew.

"Yes," the Maou's fiancé answered quietly, simply, and without even a glimmer of his usual antagonism, and made no effort whatsoever to remove himself from his betrothed's arms. He was right where he should be, until Yuuri chose to let him go. That was all there was to it.

"Good."

There was another kiss given, this time a tiny one pressed against the honeyed tresses that lay quiescent against Wolfram's solemn jawbone. And another, laid lightly on the hidden dimple that always entranced all the girls into swooning. One more, on his quivering, damp lashes, the ones that hid a green tender and pure as the budding stem of a dainty spring bloom. And they stood, silent and at peace for a very long while, and admired together the first faint prick of stars barely visible beyond the flickering glower of demon-spawned flame.

"Yuuri…"

The blonde stirred eventually in the dark-haired boy's embrace, suddenly restive, for his  _body_  remembered yesterday afternoon—and he turned his head sharply at last, seeking.

"Then we'll go in. Together."

Wolfram's reply to that was swallowed up by a hot, wet darkness, but the impenetrable night beyond the reach of torchlight had nothing to do with it.


	7. Intermission, Or 'Our Heroes Go Off on Fact-Finding Missions!'

"Oi! von Kleist!"

Gunter, having been unexpectedly hailed by an obviously impatient Consort-to-be (read 'resident-troublemaker'), cast beseeching eyes towards the always-to-be-relied-upon figure of Lord von Walde, but Gwendal was apparently entirely occupied with rolling up maps in the wake of his Majesty's very recent departure to an appointment he'd made with Gunter's daughter just that morning.

'Y-Yes? Lord von Bielefeld?"

"von Kleist! I want— I  _need_  a word with you!"

A white hand was laid familiarly on Gunter's sleeve without so much as a polite 'by-your-leave'. It tugged, destroying the perfect crease in his snowy robe beyond repair, and Gunter got a good look at young Wolfram's flushed face and burning gaze as he was hauled peremptorily to one side of the book-crowded study.

"Pssst! Over here!"

The blond's voice had dropped to what he no doubt believed was a confiding whisper. Across the room, Gunter could practically feel Gwendal's highly-sensitive ears pricking up but young von Bielefeld's elder brother kept an impassive face averted.

Gunter promptly decided he likely wasn't going to enjoy the next several minutes. Lavender eyes rolled once again in Gwendal's direction in a last ditch attempt to telegraph his urgent need for rescue but the Mazoku Commander was now methodically restoring quills and magnifying glasses to their various stations. He didn't so much as send a cursory glance their way.

Feeling increasingly put-upon, the Maou's Advisor was summarily dragged into a tiny alcove halfway between the windows without further adieu. Wolfram turned stringent green eyes upon him.

" _What's going on with Yuuri?!"_  he hissed in a piercing whisper, not bothering with further pleasantries or even a segue way.

" _Tell me!"_

Gunter blanched. Ooh, but he'd string Gwendal's guts up for garters later for abandoning him like this to the little firebrand!

"I-I don't know what you mean, von Bielefeld!" he responded immediately, nonetheless. It hadn't been just for his good looks he'd been occupying the post of Chief Advisor for two Maou's now, oh no! He could feign ignorance and prevaricate with the best of them!

"Pah!" von Bielefeld snorted, sneering. "You lie!"

The lordling gesticulated his frustration, a balled-up fist nearly swiping Gunter's perfect nostrils as it swept past.

"Yuuri's acting oddly and  _you_  must know something about it, von Kleist! It's not as if I haven't seen the two of you, off whispering away in corners like two housemaids! I'd bet my best stallion you're deep into this—this  _whateveritis_ , you—you  _plotter_ , you! So,  _tell_ me!"

"Now see here, you  _bra_ — _Lord Wolfram_!"

Gunter swelled in practiced indignation and dignified affront, his pristine white robes puffing out around him like a prized pouter pigeon's feathers. He opened his violet eyes very wide (they  _were_  his best feature, though sadly wasted on the likes of the loafer) and struggled mightily to appear totally innocent of any subterfuge.

As he _was_ …His Majesty had not confided any particular plan of action regarding the impulsive young Lord von Bielefeld to him – no, not at all! Just because Gunter assumed he was in the midst of following his sage advice didn't mean that His Majesty actually was! And really, who could  _ever_ figure out exactly what went on His Majesty's sadly— _nobly_  ill-organized map of a brain? Heika was an absolute mystery sometimes—as he  _should_  be, being the Greatest Maou and all that!

"I know  _nothing whatsoever_ about whatever it may be you're speaking of!" the Maou's Advisor enunciated each syllable clearly, which was good, because there might have been a double-negative hidden in that statement somewhere, "and I  _don't_  believe I appreciate or deserve your blatant insinuation of calumny, Lord von Beilefeld!"

"No! I mean— _yes!_  That's exactly what this—' _this'_ is! Calumny! Yuuri's being devious again, I know it—he's plotting something stupid—he  _has_  to be!"

A tiny part of Wolfram boggled briefly over 'this' being descriptive enough for Yuuri's puzzling actions over the last few days and then, shrugging, got right back to the point. He needed information and he needed it now!

"Yuuri's being—being  _weird_  – well, weirder than normal! – and  _I_  want to know  _ **why**_ _!_  It has to be some cockamamie scheme he's come up with—I don't know why  _else_  he' be doing 'this'! _"_

"Doing what, Wolfram?"

Gwendal's calm tone interceded just as Gunter was about to work himself up to another, hopefully even more off-putting, snit of outraged innocence and denial. The silver-locked Mazoku deflated abruptly once Wolfram's attention turned away, infinitely glad his fellow comrade-in-arms had not actually deserted him in his hour of need.

"What do you mean, Wolfram?"

"Yes... doing  _what_ , exactly, Lord von Bielefeld?" Gunter followed up, happy enough to turn the tables. Selfish little loafer!

" _Do_  tell!"

"Ah!"

Wolf flushed scarlet—and then paled – and then flushed a deep, attractive rose-shade. This was, in a word, 'bad'.

" _Er!"_

A pause, in which Gwendal eyed Wolfram, Wolfram glanced at Gunter, the arched doorway, the window, Gwendal and then Gunter again, and Gunter alternately watched Gwendal cautiously and glared at von Bielefeld for his impertinence.

"Well! Big B-Brother! Nothing! Really!"

It had just struck Wolfram with the force of several tons of sopping wet building materials that the specific details of 'this' and 'weird' and Yuuri's possible 'calumny' could render his own affianced self highly culpable of deeply improper behavior with regards to the person of the 27th Maou— _the garden! Oh, dear me, the garden!—_ and it was _not_ , perhaps, the best of plans to clue his stern older sibling in on his own involvement if he could possibly avoid it. Gwendal was very strict, after all. Very strict.

"I was just…just inquiring of von Kleist here if he thought—might possibly know  _why_  Yuuri was acting so, well…  _different_."

'Different' was a very good way to put it; it could imply so many things, most of them totally harmless, and certainly one had to keep in mind that vast majority of the Maou's recent kisses had been exceptionally  _public_ , and Yuuri clearly took the blame for them, so if there was any blame to be had, it was  _general_ , and it was simply  _so…so Yuuri-ish!_ …so thus Gwendal, being quite aware of the Maou's 'Yuuri-ishness', probably wouldn't pry deeply into any  _other_  recent activities between he and Yuuri that had been – had been  _very private_.

"'Different'?' Gwendal rolled each individual syllable around his tongue, quite obviously in the throes of deep consideration. "How so, Wolfram?"

" _ **Are you bli**_ —! Ah, what I  _mean_  to say is, Yuuri's been…just simply very…um,  _friendly_  these last few days, hasn't he? You know…erm, 'attentive'?"

Wolfram gulped hard and essayed an unconfident and somewhat constipated grimace that might've passed for a charming, off-handed smile for those who didn't know him at all well. 'Attentive' could be one of Gwendal's triggers. 'Friendly' was definitely one of Gwendal's triggers. Wolf was treading on very thin ice here, indeed.

"With  _me_ , that is," the soldier clarified quickly, as if he needed to.

Bah! Who  _was_  he fooling? Gwendal had watched him – watched them! – with his own two eyes every time (well, not  _every_ ) the Maou trespassed into the wilds of weirdness, calumny, 'this' and 'different' lately. Gwendal should  _not_  mind Wolf asking a simple question, then. Especially as Wolf might need some brotherly guidance as to the appropriate and politic ways of responding to stimuli quite outside the bounds of usual battlefield and ballroom behavior. Right. He was perfectly justified in his inquiry.

"So…I was only— merely  _curious_  as to whether anyone might have any idea as to…why? And perhaps…what I should be doing about it?"

Two sets of sardonic eyebrows were cocked instantly in Wolf's direction, and two sets of piercing gazes leveled unerringly on the becoming flush that persisted on Wolf's face.

"That'sall," Wolfram added in a gabbled rush reminiscent of his fiancé, taking a prudent step back toward the study doorway as he babbled. He felt remarkably foolish, after all. Pity.

"AllIwasasking. It's not important or anything. Gwendal. Just…ah, wondering."

Worrisomely, Big Brother Gwendal, long-time self-appointed protector of Wolfram's virtue, had graduated from his previous unemotional consideration and was now positively  _looming_. It was very possible, Wolfram decided abruptly, that accosting von Kleist in Gwendal's discouraging presence had been  _not_  been one of Wolfram's better ideas. He really should've waited till the coast was clear, as it were. And  _not_  involved Gwendal.

In any event, Wolfram was beginning to feel vastly uncomfortable, shuffling his highly polished boots on the carpet as he waited. Perhaps it was the bug-under-glass stare Gwendal offered him. Perhaps it was the knowledge that Gwendal would suffer no hesitation in setting things right morally and ethically if he saw the need. Which meant…

Wolf  _wasn't_  going to get his answer from the person voted most-likely-to-spill-the-beans-about-any-decent-gossip; i.e., Gunter von Kleist.

Gunter had quietly joined Wolfram in strategic retreat, but in a slightly different direction, sidling toward the mullioned windows by several crucial steps, apparently highly anxious not to get in the way of any possible contretemps between two brothers. His amethyst gaze slid toward the door with misty longing and there was a moue of discontent on his model's visage. When Wolfram risked a fast sidelong glance at him, seeking reinforcements, he knew there'd be no help at all from  _that_  quarter.

"Exactly what do you  _mean_ , Wolfram?" One would never suspect that the impervious, intent military man before them constructed small indecipherable animals out of yarn in his spare time. And  _loved_  it.

''Friendly'  _how_? 'Different'  _how_?"

" _Arrrgh_!" Wolf swallowed back his tiny shout of sheer frustration—what he wouldn't  _do_ to get a straight answer around here, but damned if he shouldn't have known better than to ask  _now_!

"Oh! Nothing, Gwendal,  _nothing— not. A. Thing_ —just a tho—but if  _you_  haven't  _noticed_ —you know, I'm actually late for the morning drills, I see. Look at the time. Well, can't have that, can we? Bad for morale. I'd best be on my way, then."

There was absolutely  _no_  question that Lord Wolfram von Bielefeld was very, very valorous indeed, but there were certain battles from which one must retreat…or die trying. Defining Yuuri's current 'friendly' – or 'weird' or 'different' or even 'this' – to Big Brother Gwendal at this particular moment in time was  _not_  one Wolf would choose willingly, even on a good day—he'd find himself wedded-and-bedded to an extremely reluctant-but-more-likely-drugged unconscious young Maou before the day was through and then be ruing it for the remainder of his disappointingly undesired years if Big Brother even  _entertained_  the slightest suspicion as to what, precisely, he and Yuuri had gotten up in the garden. Or the second-best ballroom balcony. Or behind the haybarn. Or—this was _not_  a fate he would wish upon an unsuspecting  _anyone_ , not even that idiot Yuuri! Gwendal was  _not_  the Commander-in-Chief of the Shin Mazoku Army because of mere nepotism!

Plus, that  _wasn't_  what  _he_ wanted. No…not at all.  _Damn_  that Yuuri for being so impossible!

"Right. Yes! With your permission, Gwendal!"

Wolfram had very deliberately edged closer to the doorway while he was excusing himself and now—

"And thank  _you_ , von Kleist, for your guidance in this delicate matter," the young noble threw sedately over his shoulder as he thankfully departed at last, with the twinfold purpose of getting in a final dig on von Kleist  _and_  hopefully throwing Gwendal off the scent and directing his decidedly unwanted elder brother interest in a  _completely_  different direction. Hah!

_Hah!_  Besides, Wolf huffed inwardly, increasing his pace as he fled the environs of Yuuri's study, that interfering busybody von Kleist should  _pay_  for embarrassing him just now and no doubt colluding with Yuuri all along simply to tease him and make him uncomfortable!

And, upon serious reflection,Wolfram concluded, thundering down the last staircase to freedom and the great outdoors, that last sally in information-gathering had just been…not good! Very not  **good**!

Wolf castigated himself silently for his lousy judgment in picking appropriate times and places to bring up difficult topics as he rushed across the courtyard—he actually  _was_  behind schedule for once—and affirmed once again that  _this_  occasion had been nearly quite humiliating and excessively unpleasant – and  _still_ , he had likely gotten off lightly.

But, really, there just had to be another way to find these things out without involving  _Gwendal_. It wasn't as though Yuuri's public embraces were a State Secret! Everybody saw! Everybody knew! And it wasn't as though _he_  actually had anything…much… to feel guilty about!

_Mama!_

* * *

 

Yuuri wasn't looking forward to this interview, but then again, if you couldn't ask your friends for a little help, who  _could_ you ask? Certainly not your  _other_  friends, because they were also relatives, or going-to-be-relatives, and not your  _best_  friend, because _he_  was the problem, or the root-of-the-problem (and why did certain words, like 'root', say, now make him blush?) or your  _other_  best friend, because he was a pervert and also quite incomprehensible and given to speaking in riddles. And Shori wasn't here; plus he'd asked him already and look how that had gone –hoo _boy!_  – and then there was the fact that this was probably a medical problem, or at least had a lot to do with his body.

Plus, Healer's Confidence, right? Gisela, at least, was a doctor and could keep a secret. He hoped. Fervently. And still…he wasn't looking forward to this interview.

"H-Hello?"

"Your Majesty!"

Gisela's eyes lit up with unmistakable pleasure when he knocked lightly and then peeked 'round the open door to her office – here, at least, was someone who would start off listening with an open mind and a positive attitude. Or at least not a smarmy one, like Murata-kun, or a fidgety 'I'm the older brother and you  _will_  listen to me!' one, like Shori-niisan. Right. Get on with it, Yuuri.

"Gisela!"

"Come right in, Heika. What can I do for you today?"

Hesitantly, the Maou entered the Infirmary, glancing around him furtively to make sure Gunter wasn't in residence. He halted after he'd elbowed the door shut behind him and stood stock-still, faltering, a tenuous smile plastered on his abnormally pale features.

Yuuri suddenly had no idea what to do with his hands. He tried putting them in his pockets but that didn't work; then there was his hair, flyaway from rushing and absolutely everywhere, which he could smooth back or get out of his eyes maybe, but then that just ruffled it worse and Wolf-chan would be mad at him for being scruffy—oh god, his  _feet_! What should he do with his  _feet?!_

"Your Majesty?"

Yuuri sat with an abrupt puffing of cheeks in Gisela's visitor's chair and was profoundly happy it was there. He sighed lugubriously. He needed _support_ ; he needed the silent assurance of four other legs beneath him. His body was definitely  _the_  problem these days: elevated heart rate, shortness of breath, stumbling, dropping things, perpetual hard-on—

He did not just think 'hard-on'. No, he did not. Had not.

"Heika," Gisela leaned forward, her pretty face concerned, and put a hand on Yuuri's sleeve. "Is everything alright?"

Oh, Shinou's Boxers! No, it wasn't! And how was he ever going to ask—

This had seemed like such a good idea.

Yuuri swallowed and grimaced and opened his mouth. He was not the 27th Maou for nothing!

"I," he started. Began the whole process again. " _I_ —"

"Yes?"

"Needabookaboutsex!"

* * *

 

Wolfram von Bielefeld, third son of the 26th Maou and current ex-Prince of the Realm, had  _never_  been known for his reticence. If something bothered or annoyed him, he'd no issue with speaking right out; indeed, his opinion on various topics had often been offered unasked, and forcefully, for he'd a bit of a chip on his thin, perfectly tailored shoulders when it came his dear older (and also younger older, in Weller-kyo's case) half-brothers and all their many accomplishments. Wolfram had never been one to risk being termed 'lacking' and it was this motivation – a noble one, surely, in a court that had hosted perhaps more than its fair share of slackers, schemers and miscreants, no matter how well-intentioned – that drove him to seek perfection on every front, often at the cost of common courtesy. Plus, he was a confoundedly  _curious_  person, always had been, who always needed to learn the whys and wherefores of every little thing, whether it concerned him or not.

Imagine his dismay when he realized  _finesse_  was also a virtue laudable in a noble of the most noble land of Shin Makoku. It had taken him quite some time and effort after Shibuya Yuuri's arrival to cultivate a certain – and necessary - sense of appropriate time and place that would allow him to better deal with his greatly changed reality. Naturally, he put real passion into this, as was his wont. But diplomacy…well, diplomacy is a skill hard-won and oft-times begrudged. Wolf's experiences during Yuuri's absence had given him an inkling; his perpetual state of self-enforced restraint since Yuuri's return provided constant practice. It only remained to perfect it…and to everyone's considerable relief, he had  _not_ done so.

For they were proud of their Wolfram, with all his flaws. They admired his fiery nature, no matter how exhausting it might be on a daily basis, and they had no wish for the young man to bludgeon himself into dull conformity. It behooved those closest to him, then – his family, the Maou and the intimates of the Court – to rile the young demon now and then. It was, in a word, enjoyable.

"Wolfy-darling!" exclaimed his Mama, and blinked at him with all her considerable charm. "What  _are_  you saying?"

"Mama! You can't be telling me seriously that you haven't noticed!" Wolfram ranted, pacing the rose-covered carpet of his mother's parlor. "You. Haven't.  _Noticed?!_  Mama, he's been practically slavering all over me for days!  _Days!_  You can't say that's normal!"

"Well…" his mother tapped her dimpled chin with one thoughtful forefinger. "His Majesty has always been very friendly, Wolfie."

"Mama! This is well beyond 'friendly'!"

"Oh  _ho_! So you  _do_  admit that there is something going on between the two of you?"

Cheri leaned forward from her elegant perch on the sofa, startling green eyes alight with irrepressible curiosity.

"No! I mean, yes! He's my  _fiancé!_  But it's not the way you think it is!"

"Really?" A feline grin only made his mother more attractive. "Then how is it, darling? Tell me!"

"What!? Tell you?! Mama, you've  _seen_  it! Right under your nose, Mama, nearly every single night for a week or more—don't you  _dare_  act as though Yuuri's just being 'friendly'! These irresponsible acts of his are  _not in any way_ 'friendly'! "

"You're repeating yourself, darling. Now, if I may ask, what  _is_  the problem here? Do you have something to tell me?"

"No! Oh, bearbee guano, Mother! I have something to  _ask_  you—what in Shinou's Doubledecker Carriage is going  _on_ here?!"

"Tut! Language, darling!"

Cheri calmly poured tea for her visiting youngest son. It allowed her to tilt her chin down and keep the unholy amusement in her green eyes safely hidden from her baby. Poor little boy. He was amusing to the extreme—how Conrad would laugh when she told him!

"Mama! I don't want tea!"

Wolfram only waved it away and continued his frantic pacing, opening his mouth now and again as though he'd like to say something loud and possibly very demanding, but then not doing that at all. In the end, he threw himself on the settee next to the ex-Maou and heaved an enormous sigh.

"Mama. Be serious."

"I'm always serious, darling," twinkled his Mama.

"I need your help, please," Wolf's wide emerald gaze was turned on her, all the charm and wheedling she'd taught him over the years cranked up high, "Mama, I don't—I don't understand him! He's  _not_  like this. He doesn't want—I'm not."

"Not what, Wolfie?"

"…Not what he wants. Not in the usual course of things."

Wolf put a nervous hand to his furrowed brow, shielding his eyes.

"It's only…playacting, Mama. And I don't know what to do."

Rarely was Wolfram willing to admit that there could be something amiss in his relationship with his reluctant fiancé; he'd spent so much time, after all, convincing people who didn't have Yuuri's best interests at heart that it was an impenetrable barrier between Yuuri and whatever nasty intentions they might be harboring. But he wasn't an idiot, or blind, and he knew Mama and Conrad and Gwendal, and likely some of the others, were well aware of Yuuri's real feelings on the matter, even if Shin Makoku, on the whole, was not. But it still pained him, admitting failure. He'd tried so hard and for so long, and couldn't be the person Yuuri would love ever after, no matter what he did. Instead, in a stroke of singularly dark irony, he'd become the person Yuuri  _desired_. And Wolfram didn't want that.

Didn't dare want that.

"…Do you know, Wolfie-love, the story of Rufus Bielefeld, your ancestor on your father's side?" Cherie asked after a long contemplative pause, apparently apropos of nothing at all.

"Yes, of course," Wolf waved a hand again, flapping away at pesky ancient history. It was the  _present_ that was the problem; he wished his easily distractible Mama would pay attention.

"Do you know, then, what role he played for the King?"

There was a note in his Mama's voice Wolf had not heard before—or at least, not when she was addressing him. Wolf sat up straight and turned to her, handsome face grave and intent.

"Soldier? Loyal supporter? I don't know much about him, Mama—"

"He was," Cheri's tone modulated, becoming just loud enough to drown out her son's. "Very dear to the King, Wolfie. Very  _dear_."

* * *

 

"What are your symptoms, Heika?" Gisela probed, having done her routine diagnostics already and concluded there was nothing overtly wrong with her King.

Yuuri was plenty healthy; all that sword training and jaunting about the countryside (not to mention defeating the odd villain now and then and subsequently befriending them) had given him very decent muscle tone and a nice tan. His black eyes sparkled, his dark hair was soft and shiny; had he been a dog, his nose would be moist.

"Well…" Yuuri's hectic blush had returned full force and then some.

"It's like this, you see, er—I'm— _he's_ —and then  _I_ —" and there the few coherent words the Maou could summon ceased sharply and Yuuri relapsed into blushing. Literally overcome with shyness.

"You're," Gisela eyed her King carefully, "having trouble speaking of it, Heika? It's personal?"

Meekly, Yuuri nodded and nudged his toe against the chair leg.

"And it's to do with…sex?"

Gisela threw a quick and wary hand out to catch the Maou's elbow—for a second there she thought Heika would simply keel over where he sat. Instead, he nodded again, bobbing his dark head madly, grimacing like a tortured Noh mask and clutching his knees so hard she could see his knuckles whitening.

"Ngh!"

"Calm down, Your Majesty! Sex is a normal, everyday function of life—why, where would we ever be without it?"

Yuuri didn't answer that; the thought of Miko and Shoma going it at in the marital bed was a brain-friable one of massive firepower and if his wobbly legs would've supported him, he'd have cut line and skedaddled right then and there. But Gisela was talking again in her nice, soothing Healer's voice and he tried to tamp down the muted roar in his red-hot ears so as to actually hear her.

"—and Lord von Bielefeld  _is_  excessively fond of you, so I'm sure he'd do nothing to hurt you—or you  _him_. More the opposite; he do  _anything_  to please you. Still, it's best if you go slow in the beginning, Heika. No toys or bondage and I wouldn't recommend the more advanced positions—"

Yuuri's dark eyes doubled in size. 'Advanced positions'?  _'Toys'?!_

Gisela kept her one hand steady on Yuuri's elbow as a medical precaution. Rarely had she seen His Majesty so distraught. Not since young Wolfram had 'died', actually. Best to get this over with quickly, then. Heika would be better off with practical experience anyway.

"But it's perfectly fine—and very  _healthy_ , believe me—to give in to these urges you have, Heika. I'm sure Lord von Bielefeld feels the same way. You'll need some privacy, of course, and since Mazoku men aren't set up quite the same as we women, you'll need something like this to ease the way—"

And Gisela casually handed Yuuri a vial of something oily and neon-pink with her other hand. Yuuri accepted it with trembling fingers and stared blankly at the meticulously inked label—'von Karbelnikoff's Patented Dual-Duty  _Make-It-Go-In-Without-Pain-kun_ -and- _Prevent-Any-Suprises-kun™'_ —with eyes now tripled in size. His eyebrows had already firmly retreated into his ruffled hairline some time ago.

He gasped in abject horror –' _ **Any Surprises'?!—**_ and raised his wall-eyed stare to Gisela's patient features, completely aghast at what his Healer friend was in process of advising him and wishing fervently he'd just stuck with Murata-kun's perverted babbling and Shori's insane requests to keep a yen clamped between his chastely-clothed knees at all times. Oh,  _Hells!_  Shinou's Tale-and-Whiskers! At least  _they_ didn't sear his mind into mush with images of things 'going in without pain'!  _Pain!_

"—use this prophylactic sample and of course, I have more in stock when the two of you run out. This formula should cover your basic needs for birth control as well any resultant dryness from constant activity – which is also normal, by the bye—so I think if you'll just peruse this manual we Healers have put together for young lovers and newlyweds, you'll both be fine when it actually happens, Heika. Now, the index here will help you locate the foreplay sections and there's diagrams and step-by-step instructions that cover oral and anal penetration and additional lubrication meth—"

There was no help for it; Yuuri fainted and thanked the world for going blissfully dark and silent as he toppled sideways. It could only be called a relief.

"Heika!"

* * *

 

"You know, I just happen to have Rufus's diaries, Wolfie. More tea? Cakes?"

Emerald eyes narrowed at her bland face. Wolfram, contrary to popular belief, was quite sensitive to innuendo and subtext. He'd spent years ignoring it, after all.

"You do? No, thank you, Mama. I've had quite enough."

"I do. Perhaps you should read them sometime—they may be…quite illuminating."

"Really?"

"Really."

* * *

 

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Wake up now!"

"Nnnmmph?"

"Yes, that's right. Here, sit up."

"Snrkhh?"

"And drink up." Yuuri glugged upon command and instantly felt a thousand times more clear-headed.

"That's right, Heika. All better now, isn't it?"

"Wha's'up? 'ap'nd?" Yuuri slurred and shook his head at the clinging cobwebs of the dream he'd been having—a really detailed one, with Wolf's nightgown hiked around his waist and his paler-than-cream thighs spread—

Not going there! Nope! No how, no way!

"You lost consciousness briefly, Heika. I must say I'm not at all surprised, given how physically frustrating this must be for you and your fiancé. I know  _some people_  in this castle," and there was a rather venomous emphasis in her tone that caused Yuuri to quirk a curious eyebrow, "are vastly more  _nosy_  than they ought to be, considering. Now, here. Take this."

Gisela settled him back into his chair and plopped a black leather satchel on his lap. The edge of a thick, looseleaf-bound booklet peeped out and he could see other, smaller items, all packaged in very thin waxed parchment and labeled in frighteningly familiar script tucked into various of the valise's interior pockets.

Blearily, his heart heavy with dread and foreboding, Yuuri poked at them, withdrawing a flexible narrow one, long and very thin, that was listed as "The Feather-of-Fearsomely-Fabulous-Flirtation-kun™'. Below it he found another much smaller packet that felt oddly rubbery through the wrapping, labeled 'The-Ring-'O'-Rigid-Restraint-kun™'. There were things that jangled metallically and things that clicked, all mercifully hidden by the sheen of parchment.

Feeling distinctly queasy once more, Yuuri dropped them back into the satchel, but Gisela was patting him on the shoulder in a vaguely comforting way and talking again, though by this point she sounded more and more like her nickname, 'Sergeant', as her voice had moved from mildly sympathetic to a clipped lecturing mode that reminded Yuuri uncomfortably of several of his sterner high school teachers.

"This packet is what we provide all our neophytes and newlyweds, Heika, and you need to make sure you go through the contents thoroughly, as soon as possible. Lord von Bielefeld has already done this, of course, as part of Lady Anissina's  _Program-for-the-Enlightened-and-Unfettered-by-Unwanted-Arrivals-Official-Fornication-Training_  -kun™, which  _I_ helped her develop, along with Father, so you  _must_  make sure to learn the material, too."

_There'll be a quiz on Monday_ , was what Yuuri heard, and he had to bang the back of his head lightly on the chair to shake that idea from his still-reeling mind.

" I'm  _very_ disturbed to learn that Father hasn't mentioned this to you, Heika" she added in an aside, obviously suspicious of her honored father's motives in this lamentable lack of instruction. "He should have, first thing, as soon as you and Lord Wolfram got engaged."

"Ah! No…"

The Maou shrugged and rather helplessly shook his head at that.

Uh,  _no_ , Yuuri thought, feeling a tad bit left out of the loop. More like,  _not at all!_   _No one_  had bothered to mention to their teenage Maou that Shin Makoku, his new homeland, already had a mediaclly vetted formal training program in place for this sort of thing—maybe they all thought he already knew?

Shinou's Whitey Tighties, but he'd be having a stern word with Conrad over this one…when he could actually deal with bringing up the subject matter without fainting, that is! So, maybe when he was older. Much older. Say, thirty. Or, at the very least, when he wasn't a stupid virgin anymore!

"Alright then, Heika. I think you're ready. If you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to come to me or Lady Anissina, okay? We're always available to people like you."

Well…whatever. 'People like him', hah! Stupid virginity aside, he  _knew_  now, thanks to good old Gisela – or he would soon enough. The information in his new and very self-important looking bookbag seemed to be excruciatingly thorough: a single parchment page entitled 'Ye Readily-Available-Quick-Jumping-into-the-Sack Guide to Matters of the Flesh-kun™', which was nose-bleed inducing all by itself; the actual manual Gisela had just mentioned, thick and brightly illustrated in vibrant color, with tabs and dividers and such; the comprehensive collection of 'Aide-kuns™' for 'His' and 'Hers' and 'Theirs' pleasures, which he would make a point of studiously avoiding  _forever_  if humanly – _demonly_ —possible, and finally, an additional vial of the neon-pink oil that reeked of something overwhelmingly fruity and promised to 'Warm-Thee-From-Within!™'

There was even—and he seriously hoped his poor eyes were outright lying to him—a tiny black notebook tucked in a side pocket, labeled  _'For-Those-Who-Wish-to-Contact-the Purveyors-of-Attractive-Company-For-Hire!-_ kun™'.

"Gah!"

Yeah, he guessed he was ready now.

The Maou finally brought his rather stunned gaze back to his Healer's intent and very attractive face and attempted another seasick smile.

Riiight. 'Ready'.

"T-Thanks….Gisela. I mean, erm.  _Thanks._ Gah _."_

The green-haired Healer promptly poured him a tot from her stash of medicinal HeadBasher's Finest 150 Proof  _('Grows-Hair-on-Chests-Legs-and-Knees!_ -kun™') and handed it over without a single, solitary word. Gisela was a good sort and, by Shinou's Fearsome Sword, a very practical person.

Gratefully, Yuuri tossed it back, even though it just barely past noon.

* * *

 

"I'll have the diaries delivered to your rooms later then, alright, my little Wolfie-darling?"

"Not  _Yuuri's_  room, Mama!"

"Oh, no, dearest!"

Cheri giggled and fluttered her eyelashes in a way that had likely been responsible for a good half the many hearts she'd stolen in just the last decade. "I meant your old  _bachelor_  quarters, Wolfie, not your sweet little love-nest with our adorable Heika!"

"It's  _not_  a 'love-nest', Mama! How many times do I have to tell you?!"

"Of course not, dear boy," his Mama agreed equably. "You share a bed every night, the Royal Baths every morning, the two of you neck in public at the slightest opportunity—so cute!"

"Mama!"

"—and spend as much 'quality time' as you can manage off together on exciting adventures with very little adult supervision, and of course, you train at your little war games together every day, take all your meals together, and then there's dear little Greta, your daughter—oh, and did I mention you're engaged to be  _married_? Naturally, I must've been  _mistaken_. Do forgive me, Wolfie-darling."

" _Oooh!_ "

Wolfram snorted in anger and annoyance and surged up from his mother's all-too-squashy couch in a fit of pique. Would  _no one_  take him  _seriously_  when he said it was all just an act?! Not even  _Mama!_?

"Pah!"

"By the way, darling—aren't you late for your afternoon ride with Heika?"

"Ah! Shinou's Blade—is  _that_  the time already? I must  _go_ , Mama! Pray excuse me!"

"Give him my  _fondest_ regards, darling!"

And she waved her youngest out the door merrily, her girlish giggles tinkling at his heels.

* * *

 

Fortified with HeadBasher's Finest and a black leather valise brimming with sexual expertise and instruction, Yuuri stumbled back into the hallway at last, regrettably aware he was late for something or other, and probably to do with his impatient fiancé.

Fortunately for him, that same fiancé was stomping down the corridor in his direction, a veritable thundercloud of a frown marring his bishonen perfection.

"Wolf-chan!" Yuuri called out and slung the satchel over one shoulder by its handy strap.

"Yuuri! Where have you  _been?!"_

"Ah! B-Busy!" Yuuri stammered and then frowned at his fiancé. He decided abruptly he didn't like it one bit when Wolf-chan frowned like that and that he needed to do something about it (two quick shots of HeadBanger's Finest will do that to a person)  _immediately_.

Swaying, he snagged Wolf-chan by the arm and dragged him 'round the corner to a much more deserted hallway.

"What are doing, wimp?! We'll be late for our ride—!"

Lips tasting faintly of 150 Proof were mashed into a perfectly formed mouth flavored with orange-pomegranate herbal tea and violet sugared-icing. Tongues slid together and Yuuri sucked on Wolfram's, twirling his across Wolf-chan's individual tastebuds and right around the root of the reddish-pink organ that was currently enthralling him. With a heady sigh, his fiancé tilted his perfectly shaped head and provided even more access—his teeth, white and pearly, his cheeks, warm and slippery with saliva, his tonsils and the tickly bits on the roof of his mouth. Yuuri tasted all of those and then moved on rapidly to Wolf-chan's jawline, throat and nape, nipping as he went, and before long, hands and hips had gotten into the act.

With a quiet thunk the satchel hit the floor unnoticed. Buttons were undone with trembling fingers; Yuuri slid one hip between the heat of Wolf-chan's uniformed thighs and ground against the swell of flesh he felt there, ready to greet him. They groaned into each other; Yuuri into Wolf-chan's chest and the nipple he was nibbling on, Wolf into Yuuri's black silk mop of hair that felt so good pressed against his flushed face. More buttons came unfastened through mutual effort, and belts unbuckled to mutual satisfaction and then the hands involved were placed in much more personal spaces, gripping half-hardened cocks that throbbed to the pulse shared between them and milking balls already swollen to a ripe, heady fullness. Yuuri dropped to his knees, head spinning, gripping slim hips that thrust at him spasmodically, and Wolfram gripped the rough stone edges behind him with desperate fingertips and shut his eyes because he couldn't see past the stars zinging before them and then Yuuri's lips met the smear of thin salt-laden liquid trickling and found that it wasn't bad at all—no, really  _good_ , actually, especially when it made Wolf-chan shudder and moan just like that.

One hand, with palm and fingerprints calloused by years of swordplay, found Yuuri's hair and gripped it as if it were a lifeline; the other held the wall—the whole Castle!—in place as it tilted off its axis and Yuuri licked first and then sucked a little and then slid his alcohol-scented tongue a longer distance, the very edge of his teeth just teasing—

And gulped down a mouthful that made Wolf-chan's knees buckle till he got a good enough grip on Yuuri's shoulder to lock them. And the mouth and tongue that was tinged with lightning and recalled everything Wolfram knew of the ocean lapping storm-rocked shores sucked harder and swallowed, with those hands, hands  _everywhere_ , twisting nipples and dipping into navels and finding hollows and ribs and the proud jut of pelvic bones through a sagging silk thong, and Wolfram fought for air, or anything that would just keep him breathing, 'cause he didn't want to die of bliss before Yuuri was finished—

And no one died, and no one found them or heard the garbled, bubbling noises Wolfram made that all sounded faintly like 'Yuuri!  _Yuuri!"_  or the gagging Yuuri couldn't quite disguise as he swallowed and swallowed and came shaking with ague into his fiancé's hard grip, skin still flecked with minute bits of mortar from the wall and a blood-smeared scrape or two where he had dragged it so fiercely in passing in his single-minded rush to get to Yuuri's crotch and give back just a little— _a little!_

Of the pleasure shared and Wolfram von Bielefeld, proud ex-Prince and Shibuya Yuuri's excessively handsome devil of an 'accidental' fiancé collapsed at last into the haven of his lover's lap, panting and with bloodied, cum-smeared fingers still flexing and wet red mouth puckered and full of the finest nectar, and seeking Yuuri's with a certain unerring sense of shared hunger , so that  _of course_ they had to fit their jaws together like jigsaw pieces and kiss again and again with tongues gentled by dreamy memories, swapping saliva and murmurs that meant everything and nothing till their breath came back at last and their eyes cleared and—

Wolf-chan realized they were very, very late indeed for their appointment at the stables and scrambled up, quick hand out to help Yuuri, and they set their clothing to rights in a horrid hurry—missing a button or two here and there, but what did that matter when there was more kissing?—and dashed off down the corridor at last, valise flapping behind Yuuri and knocking against his shaky legs, but fortunately buckled securely enough to keep all that incendiary information safe inside.


	8. Wolfram's Dream

Greta was lying on his stomach, fast asleep. The Maou was also napping, face hidden under a lengthy parchment scroll, having been forced to bring some of his paperwork with him by an unrepentant Gwendal, his favorite quill lax in his hand and no doubt blotting the edge of the red-and-white checked blanket with a spreading pool of indelible black ink. When he snored softly, the crinkled parchment fluttered up, giving Wolfram a fleeting glimpse of his sleeping face.

Wolfram lay prone on their shared blanket, hands folded demurely across their daughter's small back, with his head turned toward the Maou, waiting patiently for those little flutters. He was the only one still awake and he was….he was restless, though Greta's weight ensured he'd stay put.

The afternoon had been just too perfect, too much like his foolish daydreams of two years ago: Greta adorable, Yuuri engagingly polite and affectionate and chock-full of unexpected good manners. The picnic feast had been delectable, as had the chocolate mousse for 'afters' (an Earth dessert, Yuuri had told them, prepared especially for Wolf-chan at his personal request, and had whipped it out of the ice-filled leather bag the servants had carried out for them earlier with a rather gleeful-and-predatory smile of anticipation on his face). Wolfram had relished every last little bite of the creamy, fluffy chocolate confection, eating it from his spork slowly with his eyes closed in reverent appreciation and Yuuri's dark gaze fixed on his face the entire time. That had made him doubly nervous and he was already as jumpy as a cat with its tail in the door, waiting for the slam.

Wolfram grimaced at the memory of his mousse: Yuuri and chocolate were too heady a combination. He'd eat his treats in privacy next time.

It was likely the banks of flowers surrounding their little blanket kingdom like a protective reef that had left the ex-Prince feeling a tad weepy and overly-sentimental –  _something_  was, certainly – for _that_  brilliantly heart-warming gesture had nearly done him in. There were dozens upon dozens of them - mostly brilliant emerald 'Wolfram-Walks-in-Beauty' blossoms - spread about the edges of their communal blanket in a gentle, fragrant sea of blossom. A few 'Yuuri-the-Triumphant-Rulers' and 'Lovely-Gretas' were mixed in with the 'Wolframs', their black-on-black and vibrant yellow shades highlighting the glorious golden-green of one of Cheri's loveliest creations. Yuuri and Greta had picked masses of them, eagerly running about the garden and denuding patch after patch of Cheri's prized beds. It was a pity they were wilting already, deprived of their soil.

Wolf could empathize. He felt wilted, too, after more than a week of nearly sleepless nights and all the accumulated stress of dealing with a Yuuri-who-wasn't-quite-the-Yuuri-he-knew.

Where  _had_  his oblivious young Maou gone? Why was there this attentive, overly affectionate stranger in his place, torturing Wolfram daily with shy smiles and not-so-casual touches, sudden heated kisses and startling public demonstrations of their plighted troth?

And why did no one  _say_  anything? They all knew it had to be a joke, a farce – why didn't they laugh behind their fingers as they usually did when von Bielefeld ran after his reluctant fiancé? Why didn't Conrad make it a point to take his half-brother aside and warn him that nothing could come of this? Why hadn't Gwendal lost his almighty temper? Why hadn't Gunter given him those pitying looks he was so fond of doling out? And why in Shinou's Green Acres was he still here, waiting for the slam of the door that would jolt him out of this ongoing fantasy of nearly wedded bliss?

The Mazoku soldier was certain he had more pride than this – he  _did_ , and poured it all into being the best temporary fiancé any Maou could wish for while waiting for his true soulmate to appear. That  _was_  his new job description as "fake fiancé", was it not? To patiently wait, always available, and then…to depart for the hinterlands, quietly and without a fuss.

But Wolfram wasn't sure if he could, not anymore. Yuuri had kissed him again this morning, on their way to the baths, and he still tingled from the feel of it, his skin sensitive under his clothing, his fingers remembering the phantom touch of Yuuri's naked chest and Yuuri's silky hair and Yuuri's muscled back. He'd given in, of course, being the lovelorn sap he was, and allowed a randy wimp of a late-blooming teenager every liberty he could, short of that final meeting of flesh. To be brutally honest, he would've let Yuuri take him up against the wooden door if someone hadn't knocked at just the wrong moment.

Wolf wished Sangria hadn't been on the other side, clearly able to hear every little strangled moan and gasp. He wished she'd been even five minutes later, so he could've had the memory of Yuuri inside him to treasure; the look on his handsome face when he came; the smell of them together, sweaty and salty-sweet intermingled, clouding the frantic breaths he'd hauled into straining lungs.

The Maou had taken his bath alone – Wolfram had fled posthaste to his old quarters, red-faced and nearly hyperventilating, and had spent a solid ten minutes crying his eyes out and stamping about aimlessly before he'd washed, dressed and even considered facing the breakfast table. When he'd arrived – fashionably late – he was greeted by a  _fait accompli_ : the outing had already been orchestrated by Greta the day before; there was no politic way to evade it. Here Wolf was, then, with his lovely little girl and Yuuri-who-wasn't- _his_ -Yuuri, his fashionable trousers tented again just from remembering.

As Wolfram remembered  _now_ , gazing unblinking at his heart's desire as the paper fluttered up and settled down, only to finally slide off the Maou's face with a whispering rush.

Sleepy dark eyes blinked up at the cerulean blue of the sky for a second or two before they arrowed sideways, taking in the startled Demon princeling lounging beside him, clad in white-and-blue mufti (casual silk shirt loose at the collar and jacket discarded, his eye-catching locks spread in a golden halo on the homely gingham blanket) and the peony-pink of a child's silk dress draped over it. A pale and very capable hand lay protectively atop the little girl's brown satin head, stroking it occasionally.

They were a pretty picture, his family, or so Yuuri believed. He rolled over on his side to get a better look.

Wolfram immediately closed his eyes, feigning sleep, but he wasn't fast enough. The Maou's black eyebrows rose at such adorable shyness and he tipped a fond grin in his fiancé's direction, only noticing the strain that tightened Wolf's mouth a split-second too late.

"Hey, Wolf? Everything alright?"

The Maou's question was immediate – a far cry indeed from a year or so ago, when Yuuri was still largely oblivious to the choppy emotional seas in which his 'accidental' fiancé sometimes floundered.

There it was again, Wolf mused, his pulse ricocheting out of control – that flood of warm concern that swamped him in unaccustomed comfort every time he was lucky enough to be on the receiving end – sufficiently convincing to illuminate the black eyes he loved so much to a burnished pewter sheen. Wolfram's own lids twitched in reaction but he didn't dare open them all the way, unwilling to let Yuuri glimpse the longing that brimmed there, all unbidden.

"Yes, of course," he answered shortly, though not impolitely, his tenor subdued in deference to Greta asleep on his stomach. Fortunately, her long dress covered up the evidence of his uncalled-for arousal.

A finger flicked Wolfram's shoulder and Yuuri opened his eyes very wide indeed, leaning forward, propped on one elbow. He dropped a fleeting kiss on Wolfram's perfectly straight nose and drew back, smiling.

"Then why are you  _over there_?"

The concern had been replaced with teasing and Wolfram flushed with instantaneous anger. Of course he wouldn't be  _over there_  – that would be clinging and he had sworn on his eternal soul not to cling – or beg – or cry.

Come to think of it, though, he'd sworn an awful lot of things on his eternal soul in an effort to convince the various gods and higher-ups that Shibuya Yuuri was desperately needed as the 27th Maou.

And, come to think of it (though Wolf always tried very hard to avoid thinking of it), he'd already wept and pleaded and clung, driven to madness by the black-jacketed young man currently smirking at him. Not even twelve hours ago. And then there was yesterday…and the day before.

"Greta's asleep."

Wolfram firmly turned his thoughts from the dangerous direction in which they were drifting and stated the obvious in the hopes that this new, unreasonable Yuuri would stop tormenting him… yet he couldn't prevent himself from sneaking yet another glance in the Maou's direction.

It was a mistake – Yuuri looked adorable with his hair mussed and his still-drowsy face sharpened by sensual interest. Wolf flushed hotly, unable to turn away from the spark that lit the obsidian with an intriguing glow. Yuuri grinned in return and ducked his head, immediately inching closer to his fiancé with a slide of long legs, his slow, deliberate movements somehow vaguely threatening in a sexual sense, at least according to his fiancé's somewhat wild imaginings – or as threatening as a relatively innocent seventeen-year-old could get.

_Relatively_  innocent. Yuuri was no longer the completely oblivious fifteen-year-old he'd once been.

Which was not to say that he was either suave or the irredeemable playboy Wolf had once thought him. But still, he'd recently gained quite a fair store of knowledge as to how, precisely, Wolfram von Bielefeld's body worked.

The Maou silently extended one hand, drawing gentle fingers down the curve of Wolfram's hot cheek, smoothing the tousled curls of gold in passing, rubbing the pad of his thumb across the hollow of his fiancé's flushed throat, where his shirt collar had been opened earlier in deference to the warmth, where a pulse thudded visibly as the Mazoku swallowed back a wholly involuntary moan.

Wolf shifted reflexively under Yuuri's caress, instantly aware of the uncontrollable twitch in his tight trousers, the bone-deep longing that pooled in the pit of his stomach, nagging endlessly and unanswerable, for Greta lay asleep still, innocently sprawled across his torso, and there was nothing to be done about that. A risky flash of emerald silently advised Wolf's warm-eyed companion that he'd do anything the Maou might ask of him – willingly,  _eagerly_  – in the safety of their shared bedroom, but their innocent princess was very much present-and-accounted-for at this moment – front and center.

_So, please stop_ , green eyes pleaded,  _because you know I'll give in_.

Wolf watched the little fires that had awakened in Yuuri's dark eyes fade back to embers, banked to mere amiability, and the angled jaw tighten impassively as the Maou's expression blanked and smoothed to his normal pleasant, friendly mien, and wished helplessly that he was free to give Yuuri what he wanted right now – because, by Shinou's Sword, Wolf wanted it, too.

Desperately –  _more than breathing_.  _More than anything._

A flash of discomforting memory crossed the ex-Prince's mind as he shifted his smoldering gaze away in a fitful attempt to focus on anything other than Yuuri: Mama with her latest lover, smooching in this same garden, oblivious to the three-year-old who watched them with curious eyes. And the man had only been the first of many; Wolf had forgotten the number of times he'd stumbled across Mama heavily occupied with one beau or another. And hadn't he sworn up and down as soon as he was old enough to know better that  _he_  wouldn't do as Mama had – no, not after thinking he'd finally have a Papa again, only to be disappointed every time? Just because this 'new' uber-touchy-feely Maou had him all riled up and hot under the collar, didn't mean he could lose his hard-won cool and succumb to the overwhelming urge to do seductive things right back – like bat those mile-long lashes of his in an attempt to gain attention – or wriggle the shapely hips half-hidden under his little girl's dress and edge closer – or grab the confounded wimp by his lapels and physically haul him across those two unbearably wide inches of gingham blanket.

_Now_ , commanded his groin, and Wolf flinched, fighting it. If anyone  _knew_  what it was to want and never  _get_ , it was him.

" _Wimp_ ," the swordsman muttered under his breath, because the frustration was intense and he was three-quarters the way to assaulting his Maou in a completely unforgivable fashion, good parenting be damned. Greta had always wanted a little brother!

"Go back to sleep, you pervert," Wolfram said aloud instead, nodding toward the blanket. "Finish your nap."

He blamed Yuuri, who had him stumbling around Blood Pledge half-hard all the time now, never able to anticipate when he'd be grabbed and kissed and handled by loving, lewd fingers. He blamed Yuuri, for setting him adrift in this boundless ocean of desire, so worked up that a single tender word would be sufficient to give him release.

He blamed Yuuri, King of Wimps, who started these things and then didn't follow through.

The young man in question slid Wolfram an incomprehensible look and then proceeded to ignore his fiancé's command with impunity, rolling onto his stomach and settling the errant document on the pile at the top left corner of their blanket. He discovered the quill, swearing under his breath at the stain, and returned it to its case, tidying up the remains of their elegant picnic along the way.

Wolfram continued to watch the Maou out of the corner of his eye, admiring the sun caressing his blacker-than-soot hair ( _soft_ , as he remembered) and the flex of muscles under the dark coat ( _strong_ , he moaned inwardly and had to stop watching for a minute). Yuuri finished up his self-set task all too soon and scooted the length of his rangy body another millimeter closer to his fiancé, reclining on his left side with a sleepy sigh and laying his dark head down on the crook of his bent elbow. Wolfram was instantly terrified Yuuri would hear the thunder of his pulse.

The Mazoku's free hand was captured forthwith and brought to rest against the plane of Yuuri's cheek – his dear face was thinner now, more well-defined, the angles sharper and the brows slightly more pronounced, the shape of the eyes longer and narrower than they'd been on the boyish Shibuya Yuuri Wolf remembered so clearly. There was the Great Maou evident in every line of Yuuri's still-growing body, thinly disguised under the last few remnants of Japanese teenager. Wolfram's eyes widened at Yuuri's gesture and the sweet smile that accompanied it but he said nothing, only allowing his hand to be kept and even curving his own fingers after a breathless moment, so that they drifted over the slight stubble of late afternoon shading Yuuri's chin. The Maou's dark eyes eased into contented feline slits at that response and he turned his lips trustfully into Wolframs' palm, resting them there in an unending kiss.

_Even his annoying facial hair is sexy!_  Wolf realized hopelessly, and prayed heartily the next second that Yuuri would shave it before they retired for bed. Though Yuuri had scant body hair, being of Asian origin, Wolf still wasn't fond of brush-burn and most likely tonight – most  _definitely_  tonight –

they'd finally consummate the game Yuuri had begun less than ten days past. The Maou's increasingly twitchy fiancé pinkened again, all over, for the simmering heat between his thighs reminded him sharply he'd be grateful for brush-burn if more of Yuuri's kisses accompanied it.

…Where  _had_  Yuuri learned to kiss like that, by the way? The very idea was uncomfortable for a jealous Wolfram, momentarily chilling the heat that traveled down his arm from where the kiss lay in his clutching palm, making his stomach clench and tighten in an acid swirl that stirred up the mousse most unhappily. Wolfram opened his mouth, nearly blurting out the question before he thought better of it.

He'd rather not know, really. And he'd probably sworn not to ask, sometime during that endless bleak year of no-Yuuri.

A year to him; for the Maou it had only been a little over two months. Why then, was there such a change in the boy he'd known? They'd been on good terms when they parted, true, but Yuuri had been so much more…attentive…since his return to his kingdom. Even if the physical aspect of his attentiveness had begun only a short while ago, Wolfram was sure he'd received a great deal more of Yuuri's time and thought than he'd ever gotten before Yuuri left. And he didn't have to fight for it, either; it was given willingly, without Wolf even having to ask.

He didn't understand  _that_ , either.

Wolfram's musing eyes drifted back to his beloved, watching as the dark-haired youth nodded gently into another nap. He exhaled silently, the sexual tension imperceptibly easing as the trusting Maou nestled his black head firmly into Wolf's palm, the drowsing murmur of bearbees and faraway gardeners lulling him as it gentled Wolf's bitterness into nothing. The blonde blinked hard at the sight, eyes moist with an uncontrollable welling of affection.

He didn't mind, though.

_His_  Yuuri was still the same old kind-hearted, well-meaning, wouldn't-hurt-a-fly Yuuri, even if this new version of 'self' was rather more dangerous for his patient fiancé's heart. But Yuuri meant no harm by that, Wolfram decided. He never did, and perhaps this completely inexplicable touching and kissing meant he'd learned a little tolerance on that Earth of his…enough, at least, to open his mind to the possibility of an attraction other than the purely heterosexual.

Wolfram was grateful. And his monumental pride had not a single objection.

If this new Maou found him even the slightest bit pleasing, well, he wasn't going to complain. Even if it was only a teenage-male, hormone-driven fling thing, it did much to heal the rifts in Wolfram's heart caused by the previous Yuuri's distaste for boy-on-boy activity. His self-esteem was recovering slowly, even if his heart was still at sea. And he could admit now that it felt good to be desired, even if it was  _only_  'desire'. Even if the resultant passion muddled his usually sharp thinking processes and exposed him to major embarrassment when Yuuri reduced him to whimpering in public.

Even a little was enough. He would not ask for more.

Content, finally, and surrounded by his favorite people in all the world (in  _any_  world) and the hushed and placid beauty of a peaceful afternoon, Wolfram closed his eyes at last and allowed himself a little catnap. He would, after all, have to be able to keep up with Greta and Yuuri when they awoke, recharged.

…He was woken with a kiss, of course – Yuuri's newest way of greeting him. And Greta's giggles as she threw heaps of 'Wolfram' flowers at them both, the pelting petals only barely disguising Wolfram's blush.


	9. Yuuri's Declaration

Lady Elizabeth had stayed for dinner. Wolfram sat rigid in his chair at Yuuri's right hand and fidgeted, worried sick.

She'd arrived this afternoon in Raven's carriage, greeting them upon their return from their picnic. Greta had run to her, smiling and looking for her customary hug, and Yuuri had been quite his usual friendly self, welcoming her presence despite Wolfram's noticeable stiffness and frowning demeanor. Yuuri was a veritable time bomb, though, at least when it came to questionable behavior before others, and Wolf never knew what would set the Maou off. He had no wish to be reduced to a quivering heap before the questioning gaze of his childhood friend.

For a short time, the third ex-Prince believed he'd be safe enough, especially as Elizabeth was deep in the throes of regaling Gunter, Gwendal and Weller-kyo about her new light-of-love; a military man, naturally – but then she said something that made the black-suited Maou tense; something along the lines of not seeing a wedding band on her dear  _oniisan's_  finger.

Was that not the custom in His Majesty's former country? She'd heard so much about Japan's marital traditions—were his Majesty and Oniisan likely to share such fascinating new rituals with Elizabeth's countrymen in the near future? It would be all the rage, she was sure.

Wolfram's open mouth was claimed before the salad arrived, mid-stutter, and the Maou took his own sweet time, eking it out till everyone present was shifting in their seats uncomfortably, 'ahem'-ing and coughing discreetly into their serviettes at the spectacle of two young Royals lecherously frenching at the family dinner table. Even Cheri-sama, who'd arrived late and complaining sadly as to the mysterious plague that had denuded her flower beds, had to fan herself vigorously with a napkin.

Except the Sage, the imperturbable Sage, who guffawed so hard he nearly fell off his gilt-painted chair, and was reducing to banging on the mahogany surface of the dinner table for emphasis, toppling his wine glass and tipping the salt-shaker.

" _My fiancé_ , Miss Elizabeth," Yuuri stated at the end of it, his dark eyes very intent, his shoulders set under the perfectly cut black jacket, one arm firmly encircling a red-faced and gaping Wolfram.

" _My fiancé_  has no need of a wedding ring just yet, Elizabeth-san. He's already made it very clear to everyone exactly  _who_  he belongs to, you see, 'cause he sticks to me just like glue, no matter what stupid things I do or how long it takes me to figure out my path. He understands me and he listens to me and he's the very best friend I could ever,  _ever_  hope to have. That's more than enough for  _me,_  Elizabeth-san _,_ and I believe  _I_  am the Maou here, so why shouldn't it be enough for  _you_?"

Elizabeth flushed even darker than Wolfram and left the dinner table in a twittering rush, squeaking unintelligibly.

The Sage stopped giggling abruptly at Yuuri's most interesting declaration and lifted his disheveled head from the tablecloth, staring at the young Maou with lips parted softly for long moment of unexpected awe. He'd known Shibuya was a very good Demon King, perhaps the greatest; he'd known Shibuya was that rare 'good' person, sweet and genuinely innocent of ill-will and deeply sincere – he had _not_  realized that Yuuri had somehow managed to become  _a good_   _man_  as well, right under his very nose when he was least expecting it.

Murata Ken grinned then – a true smile, his radiant black eyes unshielded by glare off his glasses – for the first time in a very long while since Shinou had gone away, and began to clap slowly, the dull thud of his applause the only sound in the silent room other than the faint scrape of chair legs across the parquet.

It was a beautiful smile, Conrad thought, supporting the fainting Gunter, his other hand keeping Gwendal firmly in his seat. He hadn't known the Great Sage actually had it in him to look like that.

It was a pity Yuuri didn't get to see it, nor hear the rash of excited comment erupting from the rest of them, but then he was already gone, chasing after Wolfram, who'd lunged from his chair as soon he could manage and fled the room hot on Elizabeth-san's heels, handsome face scarlet and stark with an expression that was not readily identifiable.

And the maids were utterly frantic after the chattering conclusion of supper, calculating the newest odds for the rest of them and arranging for the enlargement of the communal betting pool.


	10. Yuuri's Innocence

"Wolf…" There was a hand on his naked back.

"What?"

Wolfram's voice was muffled by his ruffled dress shirt, currently situated over his pale face and shoulders as he was mid-way through disrobing for bed. He paused to take a long breath and concentrated on ignoring the hand.

"Did I…embarrass you?"

The hand slid down his spine, warm and heavy, coming to rest at his waist. Wolf ignored it all the harder and kept his eyes trained on the inside of his shirt. The buttons were of mother-of-pearl and one of them had a tiny crack; he'd ask the maids to sew on a new one in the morning.

"Embarrass?"

His voice was a little thick, much to Wolf's chagrin. He tried irony instead, knowing Yuuri probably wouldn't get it.

"How  _could_  you have  _possibly_  embarrassed me, oh Great Maou? Perhaps by toying with me in front of my adoptive little sister? Perhaps by making it so that I couldn't even stand up to greet her when my own mother entered the room? Or maybe it was those noises I was making? I don't believe I've ever been guilty of moaning for 'More!' in the midst of supper before, but evidently there's always a first time! But wait,  _I_  wouldn't _mind_  that, would I, since I'm constantly begging at your heels for your favors in public places, and  _s-seducing_  you and  _importuning_  you, like the sodding little  _whore_  and  _social-climber_  that I  _am_!"

"I didn't say  _that_ , Wolfram! I  _said_ —"

But others had. Still did; would always, as if Wolfram's being 'accidental' in the Maou's life had forever removed the possibility his feelings were all too real.

"You _said_  I was practically glued to you, Yuuri, boasted of it, even – as if it's a bad thing! As if you're surprised! What  _else_ am I supposed to do, may I ask? I  _am_  your  _de facto_  personal bodyguard, am I not? I'm _supposed_  to be right by your side every single moment of your day, protecting you, because  _you_ are the Maou—our King, Yuuri! Our King! And now Elizabeth thinks I'm nothing but a brainless besotted fool who gratefully submits to be being mauled in public and thinks nothing of your good reputation or mine own! How  _could_  you, Yuuri?"

"…No,  _no_ , I  _meant_ —"

"I don't  _care_  what you meant by it – keep your hands to yourself!"

Wolf choked to a stop before he could say anything really horrible, swallowed several times and then finished with tugging his shirt over his head, tossing it on one of the bedside chairs, and picking up his nightgown, only to frown at it in some distraction. He had nearly managed to forget the hand that still curled around his waistband entirely, till it slid further, the breadth of it pressed against his naked belly. Wolf inhaled sharply as Yuuri moved again, scooting across the wide bed to get closer, and stuffed his mussed head into the pink fabric of his nightgown like an ostrich finding sand.

"Wolf," the teenage Maou said softly. He laid his dark head on a convenient shoulder, ignoring the bunched up cloth and the tense of muscles under pale skin.

"D-don't!"

The blonde flinched and tried to edge away unsuccessfully. That way lay madness, he was sure. He wasn't quite ready to give up yet on unilinear thought, either; he had something to say to Yuuri tonight and he was damned well going to say it, no matter  _how_  the Maou might attempt to distract him.

But Yuuri must have been born with the innate knowledge of how to distract Wolfram von Bielefeld, because his next question scattered Wolf's anger thoughts like so much dandelion fluff in a hurricane.

"What I meant was…Wolf-chan, are you, um,  _unhappy_ that I kissed you? You didn't like it? The, erm, actual…kiss?"

The silk cascaded down with a silent swish and Wolf's features were on full view once more, startled and with bishonen brow furrowed in puzzlement.

Not liked that? How could one not like something like that? He was only Mazoku, a blue-blooded male with a healthy appetite and a three-year case of tightly-reined frustration. Yuuri could've punched him in the face after kissing him like he'd kissed him at the dinner table and Wolf would've cum hard right into the trailing tablecloth. And asked for  _more_.

Wolfram von Bielefeld stared at his blue-covered knees and seriously contemplated lying to Yuuri. His weakness was debilitating and he didn't dare let Yuuri know just how badly he was affected. But only for a moment did he hesitate – Yuuri was owed honesty, after all, at least from him. It was one of the few things Wolfram could consistently do for his fiancé that didn't rebound back on him and bite him on the ass immediately—much.

Well, there might be one more thing he could do…Green eyes were glinting oddly when they met Yuuri's. He really had never thought he'd get to this point. It had been…unthinkable.

"No."

The Mazoku sighed and tapped his fingers against the mattress. He was frowning but he seemed to be…not unhappy, Yuuri decided. Just…just different.

"No, I-I don't mind – and I'm  _not_  sorry—far from it— I just wish you'd do that somewhere private, that's all. It's shameful when I can't control myself. Thank Shinou Greta ate dinner in the nursery with Gisela!"

The Mazoku bowed his head as if he truly  _had_  been praying, color returning to tinge his face to a pretty rose. His hands went automatically to his waist, stripping his belt from under Yuuri's hand, easing open the tight buttons of his formal dress blues, doggedly preparing for bed.

Yuuri chuckled, a little bubble of relief rising up his throat. He felt encouraged again; even kind of 'positive'. It felt good after the upset Elizabeth-san had caused him, saying clearly without saying it aloud that  _he_  was messing up right and left here—that Wolf-chan was  _not_  happy, that he wouldn't be able to make Wolf-chan happy, ever. That he wasn't good enough for someone so special.

And that didn't bear thinking of: Wolf-chan was his priority, his reason-to-be. Somehow honey-blonde hair and green eyes like jewels and a tongue sharp as a rapier and a slim, boyish body that reeked insane amounts of sex appeal had become the catalyst for all Yuuri's own happiness. He couldn't imagine smiling or laughing without Wolf-chan being somehow involved, to share it, or be told of it later, or instigate it in the first place. To…be happy  _with_  Yuuri.

Lips brushed Wolf's exposed nape and Yuuri sighed with contentment at the smell of him, the telltale sheen of perspiration, grinning again with devilment in his black eyes as he found one of Wolfram's known 'weak' spots, burying his nose deep in the fragrant hollow where neck met shoulder. Wolfram trembled in reaction, his hands damp where he'd grabbed the loosened waistband of his trousers, ready to remove them.

A shy Wolfram was a cute Wolfram – Yuuri had already discovered that. But a sobbing Wolfram was very, very worrisome. And, well, he'd already been very worried and concerned as to whether his recent campaign to uplift Wolf's spirits was really working out the way he planned it. Sometimes it seemed it was – when Wolfram was gazing at him with stars in those green eyes after having just been kissed silly – and sometimes it definitely  _wasn't_  - like this evening, when his fiancé had rushed from the room and shut himself into the bathroom for two hours.

Or a couple of nights ago, when some intangible seventh sense told Yuuri that Wolfram was suffering - somewhere alone, without him. He hadn't been able to tolerate the thought of that and had rushed off in the middle of another one of those damned perpetual receptions, no doubt offending someone important and sending Gunter into fits of blood-letting.

Maybe…just maybe his 'positive' was interfering with his 'reassuring'? Wolfram might not believe Yuuri was willing to go through with this all-important marriage, though, if he didn't keep up with the  _positive_.

And he was doing the best he could, given the hodge-podge of advice he had to work with: Yosak (he'd finally broken down just two days ago and asked the knowledgeable red-headed spy as to what he should be doing next and then had nearly had a nose-bleed himself at the pornographic detail of the answer); his buddy Murata (pervert, pervert,  _pervert!_ ); and Gunter ('how about a sonnet, your Majesty – they always work for me!') and  _those_  books he'd wheedled Shori into buying for his reference. Those books and the videos—some of them very graphic indeed, so much so that both he and Shori felt rather ill afterwards and not from the rice cakes and popcorn.

Poor Shori – he'd probably never think of his deal little 'Yuu-chan' the same way.

But he'd wanted to  _be_  positive, had wanted it from the moment he'd realized that the better half of his heart was still back in Shin Makoku, held fast in the careful hands of his bishonen fiancé. He'd wanted to move forward and finally demonstrate to Wolfram, very definitely and without a doubt, that he  _knew_ what (who) he wanted – and even  _understood_  what to do with it once he got it. The last was a matter of personal pride: he didn't mind if Wolf-chan called him a 'wimp' about everything else, but he'd be eternally damned if he'd be called a 'wimp' in the bedroom!

It wasn't Wolf-chan's fault he was a boy, as Murata had so helpfully pointed out. And being a boy wasn't a fault at all, according to his Mama.

[ _Well, of course, love goes all ways, Yuu-chan. I just wish your Wolfie had wings_.  _Maybe the babies_ —]

But it was Gisela who'd actually helped him the most: her and her official Healer-Approved™ bookbag of earthly delights and detailed instruction. He'd had to touch himself more than once just on the first read-through and the thought of doing those things—any of those things!—in that godsdarned manual with Wolf-chan had him gasping and cumming several more times with barely a stroke for encouragement! Hoo  _boy!_  If he could actually manage to make Wolf-chan feel even half-as-good as he'd felt just fantasizing, then he was pretty sure they'd be alright!  _More_  than alright!

"Wolfram…are you…tired?"

Yuuri kissed the pale shoulder again and felt his bedmate tremble. A slight shift of his weight and his pajama-clad torso pressed against fully Wolfram's back, warming it. The blonde's trousers were down around his ankles now, having been shimmied there by a shifting, red-faced, silent Wolf-chan, who was evidently working his own apparently difficult way up to saying something.

Yuuri didn't want it to be 'No.' He didn't want it to be 'Later', or 'We should wait', or anything that would prevent them from getting closer. He wanted Wolf-chan willing and eager and feeling the way _he_  felt—

"Yuuri…? I need to talk to—"

The blonde head turned sharply and Yuuri chuckled in satisfaction at the glimpse of widening emerald eyes. Exactly what he'd been biding his time for, the perfect opportunity – he took Wolfram's mouth before the blonde managed to finish his sentence, effectively diverting his fiancé from whatever other faults of Yuuri's he no doubt wanted to discuss (Wolf-chan had been in the bathroom for a very long time) and whatever excuses he might've come up with in the meantime. On cue, Yuuri's devilish Maou-driven hands went into action, travelling here, travelling there, leaving throbbing, hungry Wolfram-body parts behind them wherever they went. Wolfram moaned helplessly after a moment, any feeble resistance well dissipated, brainwaves seriously disrupted, and Yuuri was able to successfully carry him down to the mattress, straddling the soldier's hips to keep him there.

Not that his fiancé objected.

Not at all. He was actively helping and Yuuri found that to be excessively  _reassuring_. In turn, Wolfram found Yuuri's obvious desperation to disrobe him unbearably  _hot_. He trembled before it, warming himself in the fires that filled those dark eyes and finally allowed himself to let it happen, all of it, with no further misgivings.

Misgivings could happen later; Yuuri was far more important  _now_. Always.

The barely wrinkled nightgown was discarded, tugged over Wolf-chan's head and flung indiscriminately at the floor. The pants and boots and hose were torn off the delicate bones of Wolfram's ankles and feet and tossed in a heap somewhere near the windows. Wolfram didn't care where any of it went as long as it was Yuuri taking the clothes off his aroused body. He'd been waiting for this, seemingly forever. He'd been dreaming and hoping and wishing, even when it seemed that hope was abandoned and dreams were dust and wishes were only reserved for a better class of beggar than he. He groaned his acquiescence to all of it; his neck tilted uncomfortably at an angle under the force of Yuuri's eager mouth, and let himself sink into the pillows, lost in sensation.

Wolf bit down on the corner of one pillowslip a moment later, trying to keep his whimpers of pleasure from spilling out into the breathy silence. He sounded too needy; he would frighten Yuuri and he couldn't let that happen—not when they were so close.

Yuuri stopped his ardent attack on a hardened nub of a nipple and looked up inquiringly, his black eyes burning like hellfire and oddly wise, and then tugged the pillow away with one impatient hand. He swarmed up Wolfram's flinching limbs, his weight leaving in its wake a flaming mark of possession, and captured the Mazoku's chin in stern fingers.

"Let it out," the Maou ordered his trembling fiancé, his voice husky with barely tamped-down passion. Green eyes went wide in the moonlight, wondering. Fingers touched Yuuri's pajama-clad shoulder, just lightly.

"Yuuri…?"

"I  _want_  to hear it. I  _need_  to hear it. So say it, scream it, I don't care.  _Tell_  me—I want to hear every noise you make, Wolf-chan, so I know you like it," there was a nip to his pointy chin that had Wolfram sighing in pleasure, "so yell or bitch or moan or something–anything—or let  _me_  have them, Honey-chan, all those sounds you make—I love them. I'll swallow them  _all_ , Wolfram _._  Nobody'll know but  _me_ , I swear it."

The mouth that covered Wolfram's was firm-edged and confident at last; Wolfram melted entirely, his anxiety subsumed by sweet words and sweeter actions.

"And I  _need_  to know, Wolfram. I want to make you happy. I need to be sure of it."

_He was Yuuri's_ , the blonde affirmed silently,  _to do with as he liked_. If he had not known this before—if it had somehow escaped him, this moment alone would have convinced him.

Of course, he had to tell Yuuri this, and soon, so that his Maou would know he expected nothing further than what he was given; that he only wanted to be allowed to love. It was all that Wolfram had ever wanted – to be allowed to love Yuuri.

"Wolf-chan, I want you to want this," Yuuri growled impatiently when he received no verbal response and the ex-Third Prince thought vaguely about telling his fiancé he was already ecstatic and speechless under the onslaught of unpracticed fingers and a drifting, damp brand of a mouth – and then forgot all that completely, when a tongue invaded his navel. He shuddered instead and grabbed at Yuuri's black hair, tugging him closer, abandoning words for action. His hands were at Yuuri's pajama top buttons in a flash, pulling at them impatiently, ripping the threads in his need. Yuuri took that as a good omen, but it was Wolfram's extraordinary eyes that truly convinced him he was going in the right direction with all this.

They were as bright as he'd ever seen them, hazy and full of all the warmth he'd felt rolling over him when the bearbee babies hatched, or that sickening second when the world had fallen away at his feet and it was the hand of someone dear who'd flung himself willingly into the breach between Yuuri and oblivion—when there was only Wolfram, Wolfram, and he'd been struck dumb then, unable to verbalize how much that silent message meant to him, but he was _not_  now—not now, having learned what it was to roll over seeking comfort and the scent of the one he couldn't do without and then not find his Wolf-chan where he was supposed to be.

"I want to please you," Yuuri stated, just to make sure Wolf-chan _knew_  he knew _. I want to make you happy, and keep you that way, so you'll always be with me…so you'll never leave._

Blue cotton cloth crumpled into Wolfram's avid hands and he tossed it blindly, his eyes never leaving Yuuri's serious face and the story it told him. It was only when Yuuri's seeking fingers found his pulsing erection and gripped it carefully that Wolf's long lashes fell, quivering like the rest of him. The tentative fingers slid gently, slowly, and the blonde arched his back, emerald eyes stunned.

"You like that, Wolf-chan?"

It was whispered against his stomach and the brush of lips against his abdomen was almost, but not quite, as good as the fingers wrapped around him. He could cum like this, just with anticipation and the lightest of Yuuri's touches.

" _Ungh_!"

The tongue slipped from the shallow indentation and found its way up the shivering skin that bloomed with heat, trailing up a throat white as marble to brush teasingly against at Wolf's parted lips and then down again, across finely boned shoulders that had borne more weight and for far longer than anyone—not even Yuuri—had ever realized.

"Hah!"

The other nipple was captured, played with, adored, and Wolfram breathed out his lover's name soundlessly as soon as he remembered how to form words. But there was only one word that was important.

"Yuuri, Yuuri..." Wolfram sighed and then bit down on a shout when the mouth slithered down his torso once more and unerringly found the well of his desires. Lips went slip-sliding, waltzing across turgid flesh with gay abandon, and there was a nip of teeth that had Wolfram's hips jolting up and almost entirely off the mattress, emerald eyes golden-hazed and wide against the night.

" _Ahhh_!"

Wolfram caught fire, almost literally, skin crackling with energy, charged with delight, and buried his fingers deep in Yuuri's dark hair for grounding, all the blood in his body concentrating at the joining of his trembling thighs. He scrabbled for purchase, curling himself up toward Yuuri in a mindless attempt to meld with one he loved.

"Gods, but you're beautiful," Yuuri gasped. "I'm so  _lucky_ —"

Wolfram was slick and trembling when Yuuri was at last satisfied, dripping with excess saliva and the salty dribbles of his own desire. He was limp, too, having had his soul extracted – sucked out, or so it seemed – and taken very carefully into someone else's hands. He never wanted it back – it could stay with Yuuri, safe and cosseted. He wouldn't miss it, he knew; it had been in Yuuri's keeping so long it wouldn't know how to act, what to do, how to survive without him.

"Is this…okay? Wolf-chan?"

There was a sweaty palm cupping his balls, caressing them, and while the last remnants of his brain were melting, the hand moved back, and a fingertip tentatively ringed the opening Yuuri had read about. Wolfram flinched…and whimpered with longing when it petted him.

"Then…  _g_ _omenasai!"_

"Ahhh! Oh,  _gods!"_

The moistened finger slid fully into him, twisting. Another joined a moment later, swirling, seeking. A third entered when Wolfram jerked his legs wide to receive it, grinding himself into Yuuri's palm and wriggling madly, and the Mazoku thought he'd die of delight when they finally found 'it' – the special spot inside him that made the wind rush by and all colors flame to vermillion. He gulped and sputtered and could find no words to describe his gratitude, his devotion, his utter inability to deny Shibuya Yuuri anything he wanted.

He angled his elegant hips instead, wrapping long firm legs round Yuuri's middle, and thrust up, taking in the fingers as deeply as he wished to take in their owner.

_Yuuri!_

"Wolfram!"

He was answered with a grunt of pure male satisfaction, a rumble that echoed deep in his own groin. The young Maou fought for balance as he rose to his knees, shucking pajama pants and positioning himself between the blonde's convulsively thrusting hips, replacing the horrible loss of fingers with the very crown of his manhood. There was spit coating it and Wolfram's passion and Yuuri could think of nothing better to be anointed in when entering the temple that was Wolf-chan.

"Ungh!"

The blonde took that, too, eagerly shoving himself forward and upward so as to engulf the Shibuya family jewels in a desperate hungry rush that literally knocked the air out of him. The answering movement kept him that way, tight and unwilling to inhale, till friction and fortuitous circumstance found that spot again and Wolf keened, the tiny sounds buried against Yuuri's mouth, and fell gradually into a dreamy, earth shattering rhythm initiated by his betrothed.

It went on and on, sometimes painful, sometimes so sublime that Wolfram marveled vaguely at the concept of not ever doing this –  _how could they; did they know what they were missing?_  – but always enthrallingly heady, like internal fireworks wheeling against the black velvet canvas of his mind or the sweet gush of juice from the strawberry Yuuri had fed him on their picnic. It was a frantic eternity, hot and sweaty, sticky and uncomfortable, and his back ached like a bitch from the awkward position, pushed against the pillows in a collapsed arch, his knees drawn up to his perspiring face. He was panting harshly, for oxygen seemed to elude him, and his partner's hands were never still, roaming like lightening across his straining muscles and highly sensitized skin. He couldn't bear it, for the pressure went on building to an infernal level and he could've sworn little licks of flame had set the sheets afire around them and they'd be consumed alive if Yuuri didn't kill him outright with pain and pleasure first….and  _pleasure_ … _so_  much pleasure…and Yuuri was talking to him all the while, murmuring continuously, his mouth moving against Wolfram's flushed chest and though his dampened hair. Wolf couldn't quite hear the words through the roar of rushing blood in his ears, but they were reassuring and positive and the possessive tone in Yuuri's voice made him shake and continuously fall out of rhythm until the Maou's hands gripped his hips and got them back on course once again.

Wolfram found he loved everything about it, sticky and messy though it was: the bruises on his skin and the dryness of his throat. He wanted it to never end, ever, for in a dreamy sort of way it meant that Yuuri was an integral part of him, finally, and he'd become an extension of the one he'd loved so well and for so long. When it did, at last, with Yuuri ferally grunting his satisfaction and driving so deep Wolfram was slammed hard into the mattress, whimpering and mewling, knees clamped tight to Yuuri's flexing shoulders, his own heady ejaculation spraying Yuuri's chest with a web of tiny pearls, he cried out silently, shaking his head in denial at the ending of dream.

_No! It couldn't be over – it couldn't be over—_

"Wolf!"

_He had wanted a little more – just a little more. He wanted it not to be over—never over, never done—_

Yuuri kissed him, hard and sloppy, marking him again, as if Wolfram needed that. The Mazoku was silent under the Maou's assault, nearly gagging on the comforting tongue thrust down his throat. He swallowed hard, returning the suction, and pressed himself into the tight embrace Yuuri had engulfed him in, reveling in the triumphant knowledge that Yuuri was trembling only because of him.

They lay there, fused at hip and chest and mouth, Yuuri still half-buried in Wolfram, twitching faintly and Wolfram jerking now and then with aftershocks and muscle memories of wishes fulfilled, until the cloud of passionate steam eventually receded with last of the nibbling kisses and Wolfram could focus once more on something other than his body and Yuuri's body and the magic they'd made together. He blinked, untangling his long sweep of lashes, and regarded his lover with a shy hope rising phoenix-like from the long-awaited meeting of bodies.

The Maou shifted, dark eyes always fixed on his fiancé, rolling to one side so that Wolfram could finally use his lungs to full capacity, and slid a questioning palm down the Mazoku's damp flank.

There were marks there, too, on both hips and the thighs between them, of fingers that had imprinted where they'd been clenched so hard, and the reddish-purple blossoming of tooth-petaled flowers that claimed and staked and cordoned off the Maou's territory. There were bruises blooming on Yuuri's neck and shoulders that told the same story and Wolfram—when he noticed—flushed at his own audacity and was at the same time very fiercely proud.

"You…you're okay, Wolf-chan? I didn't hurt you?"


	11. Wolfram's Priorities

_Yuuri!_

Wolfram's misty green eyes lit up with renewed determination. He gave himself a tiny shake, pushing away with all his considerable will the lingering ache of reverie for the act of passion he and Yuuri had just shared—a defining moment in  _his_  life, at least, Wolf recognized, though for Yuuri…well, no matter: he had something he must say tonight if it killed him. And it might very well—or at least slaughter his all-important pride, but who cared about that?

The stakes had been upped considerably. Now Wolf knew for sure what he might lose by hesitating.

Driven, and with his world still rocking in the aftermath of the act he and Yuuri had just committed, Wolf slid out from under the possessive arm that bound him and scrambled up on an elbow, and then—when he was momentarily dizzy—almost immediately laid his drowsy, somewhat scrambled head on the rapid rise-and-fall of Yuuri's chest. The Maou shifted subtly beneath Wolf's sprawl, settling his arm right back where it had been draped comfortably 'round Wolf's waist, and making an inarticulate sound of annoyance in relation to his fiancé's sudden interest in unnecessary activity.

Distracted by his lover's scent, lured into nibbling the damp, still hot skin he found under his cheek, not to mention the entrancing rhythm of the heart that beat under that heady expanse, Wolf pressed fond butterfly kisses there, scattering them all across Yuuri's ribcage and shoulders and abdomen like little stars, till the Maou finally reached out and stopped him forcible by the simple act of grabbing his fiancé with the other arm and pushing him forcefully away. Wolf rolled to his back, startled and chilled by the cessation of all that lovely body warmth. Instantly, a dull pang bloomed in his gut at the perceived rejection but it was wiped away in a blink as Yuuri immediately dragged him bodily back again before he could even draw breath and punished him with kisses.

"Tickles! Stop doing that, Wolf-chan!" was Yuuri's half-whining, half-laughing protest, muffled against the voracious lips of an easily distractible blonde. "You're…a…pest! Kiss me for real or…or something…."

Wolfram was Maou-handled again even as Yuuri nibbled at the edge of his mouth and left words there, all in the space of scant seconds, hauled upright by tanned forearms that shivered still with the remnants of spent lust and settled gingerly atop the breadth of Yuuri's narrow hips, the viscous, creamy moisture smeared there gluing skin to skin in a delightfully intimate way. One of Yuuri's broad hands stayed flat against Wolfram's damp sternum, propping him up and lightly caressing the hidden heart that still pumped erratically. The 'something' Yuuri mention in a low growl was most definitely to encourage Wolf's participation in further acts of depravity.

"Wolf?" Yuuri asked when his fiancé stayed stubbornly silent and still.

"Yuuri," the Mazoku nobleman murmured in return, eyes half-shuttered and doe-soft as he gazed down at the dear face below him, rapt again.

With a barely visible struggle the Mazoku soldier succeeded in swallowing back the confession that swelled like a tidal wave up his suddenly clogged throat. What they'd just done would've rendered the old Yuuri completely catatonic; sex was a fabulous step in the preferred direction but Wolfram knew better than to ruin his future chances with a heartfelt admission of deathless love. It was much too soon for that—and likely the last thing Yuuri wanted to hear right now from his admittedly jealous 'accidental' fiancé.

But Wolf was determined this time to say _something_  – and the _something_  was fairly momentous. It was a  _shameful_  proposal, that's what it was – or so he'd first thought, when the concept swam up from the bottom of his murky subconscious and offered itself up for inspection. But the more he examined the idea, the more acceptable it seemed. What was pride without Yuuri? What did a stupid title matter?

He lowered his pointy chin, blushing demurely before he even began, and was strangely relieved when his luxuriant hair fell forward to hide his red face. The idea had come to him in the bath earlier, this singular gift only he was in the position to give. He never would've thought of it, of course, if Yuuri hadn't seemed so very…sincere in his physical interest – but there it was, long story short: Rufus Bielefeld. Yuuri might even be willing - if only Wolf could manage  _not_  to not screw up the presentation.

Truly, the third ex-Prince believed, it was the best of all solutions in too many ways: an honorable way out of the quandary that bound them and kept Yuuri unmoving, trapped in an engagement that would ultimately lead absolutely nowhere. An honorable way to tell the world that Wolfram von Bielefeld was not altogether unwanted by this odd and unusual, completely non-traditional 27th Maou.

In a way it would actually rescue Wolfram von Bielefeld's all-important pride even as the destruction of their long-standing engagement shattered his publicly broadcast aspirations, but – but, weren't some swords all the stronger for being reforged? And did it really matter so much what _he_  called himself, as long as he could stay this close to Yuuri?

Besides, Gunter's books stated there'd been many Royal Concubines before, a significant number of them of the male persuasion. There would be no shame in being such if he couldn't be the one Yuuri married. And Wolf knew he couldn't, after all. Yuuri wanted a girl and, knowing his obstinate Maou, Yuuri would have one. There was also the Royal succession and the fact that their darling Greta needed siblings – as soon as possible, before she was too old to care about a baby brother or sister to play with. And it had been said that it was extremely unlikely, a male Mazoku conceiving. There'd only been a very few examples in all of Shin Makoku's long history – one of them his own exceptionally fecund ancestor, Rufus.

But it wouldn't be him – no, Yuuri would never love him  _that_ much, nor have the patience to keep trying for a child year after fruitless year. His Yuuri, of course, was convinced it was only females who could provide babies, though, according to Rufus's rather detailed accounts, it simply required a great deal more effort to impregnate a male Mazoku….and some luck.

Wolfram wasn't sure if he had any luck left. He might've used it all up tonight.

"Wolf-ram, are you awake up there?" Yuuri interrupted the soldier's tactical cogitations with a tired, sing-song whine and a fond little tap to his chest.

"I'm getting slee-pee."

Well, anyway, Wolfram was certain it wouldn't be him…but that didn't mean he had to give up  _all_  his new-found happiness.

"Wolf-chan, let's go to sleep."

_Oh, no, you didn't!_ Wolfram roared at that adorably annoying face. _I_ _ **am**_ _going to do this, by Shinou's Sword!_

Deliberately, Wolfram rocked his svelte hips instead of answering aloud, grinding himself against Yuuri in a clearly indecent way, and the Maou immediately looked a lot more attentive.

"Wolf—?"

Wolfram swallowed and got right to it— _finally_ , deliberately jettisoning the last remnants of his useless outmoded expectations of wedding bells and wedded bliss to the careless winds.

"Yuuri, if after…if after you find – after you marry, Yuuri, if you should want me to, I'll stay…with you," he managed to mutter, not quite looking the dark-haired boy in the face. He settled instead for monitoring Yuuri's eyebrows, knowing enough to use them as a barometer of his fiancé's—soon to be 'ex-fiancé's'— emotions.

Coal black eyes stared up at him from the moon-washed sheets, gleaming with puzzlement.

"Well, of course you'll stay—" the Maou began, apparently not quite knowing what to say to that odd statement. His elegant brows twitched nervously. He ran a quick palm up one of Wolf's arms nervously.

Wolfram frowned in passing annoyance – Yuuri was so dense sometimes, it was downright sickening. Besides, he was fairly sure he'd been quite clear in what he was suggesting and, more than that, he knew for a fact that von Kleist had already reviewed this concept and all the attendant historical precedents with Yuuri – he was  _positive_ ; he remembered standing right there at the time, sizzling fireball in hand.

But no understanding dawned on the innocent face below.

Wolfram attempted once more to extend his incredibly selfless offer, screwing his courage up to the sticking point in order to use the actual word, 'concubine'.

'Different', the Great Sage had told him. That's what their relationship would be. Demeaning, this declaration of willingness to abdicate a rightful and universally expected honor and station issuing from a proud von Bielefeld's lips…yes, yes, he _knew_  all that. Accepted it. It  _was_  shameful, no doubt about it – and utterly necessary, of course. Even if Wolf had to hammer the concept firmly into Yuuri's thick head, he couldn't let this golden opportunity pass him by, especially as they'd just proved beyond doubt they were exceptionally compatible in bed; not and contemplate any kind of life at all in the future. It would be dark and empty rift in his soul when Yuuri finally located his 'real' Consort and married her with all the pomp and circumstance that Wolf had spent years dreaming of, but at least there could still be the possibility of some degree of comfort.

For the both of them.

"Wolfram?"

…And Wolfram would give everything he had to be a 'comfort' for his wimp, now and forever. The world, even Yuuri's brave new world, could be a cold, hard place. He couldn't begin to contemplate the thought of Yuuri, alone. Not loved the way he should be, the way he deserved, but only 'honored' or 'obeyed' by some wench who saw only the crown and not the man.

Wolfram von Bielefeld, in all good conscience, could not allow it. Not now, not when he knew for certain that Yuuri desired him.

"I  _meant_ , if you'd just listen to me for a half a second, wimp, as your Royal Concubine. You're going to want one, you know – the women of Shin Makoku are  _very_ strong-minded."

Wolfram shrugged his pale, kiss-marked shoulders as he spoke, making light of the whole matter, of this priceless thing he was casually laying at the Maou's proverbial feet. Slowly, not drawing attention to it, he let the tips of his ever-so-slightly trembling fingers rest against Yuuri's breastbone, hoping that the steady beat there could transfer some much needed courage to his own sagging spine.

If it took this much effort merely to force Yuuri into understanding what he was actually handing over here, free and clear, no strings attached, what would it take to make Yuuri say 'yes'?

Once more, then, with feeling, Wolfram silently resolved.  _Then_  he could crawl into a convenient hole, curl up and quite possibly die of combined embarrassment and rejection.

"I'll be _that_ for you….if you like."

"Whaaat!?"

Still-still!-there was absolutely no ready comprehension whatsoever in the voice that questioned him, though a broad palm clenched suddenly on Wolf's extended forearm, tightening unbearably.

In a flash, Yuuri's features changed from openly puzzled to smooth and blank; lids lowering over black eyes hardened to an unreadable obsidian in the moonlight. Wolfram shook his head faintly, irritated and confused at Yuuri's continued cluelessness – hadn't he managed to practically shout his compromise at Yuuri's idiotic face? How difficult could it be for the wimp to give him a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer? He wasn't asking too much too soon, was he? Gods, but he hoped not, as it was too damned late  _now_ —okay,  _again_. He had to do this again. So much for doing this gracefully. So much for seduction.

He'd never been terribly good at subtlety, Wolfram acknowledged.

" _Concubine_.  _Con_ -cu-bine. Don't you know? It means someone who's  _available_ —"

"I  _know_  what the word means, Wolfram."

The vicious grip eased a bit and Wolf breathed a sigh of relief. He'd be bruised black-and-blue in the morning and that was his favored sword arm Yuuri'd gotten hold of.

"…Is that all you're willing to be, then?"

Yuuri's voice was bland as porridge and even as polished granite, only the faintest hint of somber curiosity coloring it. Wolfram cast his eyes over the Maou stretched beneath him, adoring the sweep of black hair in the silvery light, the curve of firm lips still slightly damp with his own saliva. The fleeting impression that he was in the midst of doing completely the wrong thing fled him as quickly as it came. He was  _glad_  Yuuri was taking this all so very calmly; after all, this plan was for Yuuri's sake, so he could have that woman that he wanted, so Wolfram could remain close by and watch over him, keep him safe. Give him…whatever he might need, whenever he might need it.

…And let Wolf love his Yuuri in every way allowed, for his stalwart heart would beat for no other as long as he lived. And when he died…well, Wolfram would not stop feeling this way even after he passed on to whatever might follow. Perhaps, Wolf mused, a ghost of a wry smile quirking the lips the Maou had ravaged not a quarter hour earlier, he'd manage to be a female in his next incarnation. It wouldn't suit him, to be sure, but for Yuuri's sake….

And the Mazoku was positive this Concubine idea would work – he'd make it work, for all their sakes. He'd keep his pride by serving his King, or at least most of it, and Yuuri wouldn't ever, ever have to be alone. Greta would have her 'other' Papa close at hand. There would be no possibility of her being ignored or slighted by some unknown woman attempting to play 'Wicked Stepmother' to the Maou's first and most precious child, not while Wolf lived and breathed.

And no chance that the Maou might suffer some horrible betrayal at the hands of a foreign princess—there'd be a trustworthy guard on duty at all times, watching out for Yuuri's back.

Wolfram's natural confidence surged back, mayhap prematurely.

"Well, of course, wimp. You're going to marry some female eventually, correct? A noblewoman, from Shin Mazoku or some other land. It is inevitable and your duty as the Maou. But we are…compatible, I believe," and here the acknowledged Slayer of Shin Mazoku's various and sundry hearts preened a bit, running a tremulous hand through his golden locks and gazing down his perfectly straight nose, knowing full well that any other person in Shin Makoku would've taken him up on his offer the instant he made it.

"—and I'll be available at any moment you might want me. If the Army's moving, for instance, or if you mount another Peaceful Expedition, and you don't wish to bring your Consort along for her safety – that's been done before. Or if she is far along in the months of child-bearing. Shinou himself—"

"You are an ass, Wolfram von Bielefeld. A complete and total  _ass_. Get off me."

Shibuya Yuuri's tone was even, entirely calm, and stern, but his forceful hands were not. He moved, lightning fast.

" _Oh_ —!" Wolf cried out, shocked.  _"Yuuri!"_

Wolf gasped. Had he said something wrong? Had he somehow insulted Yuuri? He'd known that there was a slight – very slight – possibility he'd been asking too much of Yuuri with the official designation as Royal Concubine. Yuuri was still awfully naive and, Wolfram  _had_  to admit it, sometimes still downright stupid about the way things worked politically – but if that was the only way, then he'd do it, or be damned trying. It was  _good_ solution, Wolfram swore, and the wimp should just admit that fact and be grateful—pleased, even, that Wolf was offering an honorable way out of this entanglement—

But the young Maou was shifting under Wolfram instead, shoving him off-balance and away so fast that the startled Mazoku landed with a thump on 'his' side of their huge bed, flailing desperate arms and nearly tipping over and crashing onto the floor. An obdurate and stone-faced Maou immediately turned his back to his sputtering, wide-eyed fiancé, sliding quickly to perch on the very edge of the wide mattress, dark head bowed. He laced his fingers together and regarded them soberly; black eyes swimming with pained uncertainty—though, of course, Wolf couldn't see that, stranded as he was on the other side of the enormous bed.

"W-wait! Yuuri?"

This was simply unreal; totally unexpected – it wasn't the way it was supposed to be, not at all…they had just…just—and Yuuri was  _angry_? Why!?

"W-What in the w-world!?" Wolfram stuttered, struggling to comprehend what might be going on in his fiancé's adorably foggy head this time. Green eyes narrowed, he quickly found his balance and regarded the Maou carefully, waiting for Yuuri to tell him how he'd erred so that he could fix it.

The absolute last thing Wolf wanted was to have Yuuri turn him away.

The dark-haired boy regarded his knees thoughtfully. A quiet moment passed, punctuated only by the sound of Wolf's harsh breathing and Yuuri's quiet sigh. When the Maou spoke again, his tone was still purely conversational, calm and cool, as it had been just before he removed Wolfram forcibly from his lap. The flatness of it reminded the blonde of the Great Maou in one of his very rare more reasonable moments and for once, Wolf absolutely  _hated_  it.

He wanted Yuuri to yell or something. Shake him by the shoulders and tell him he was ridiculous. Not be cold and rational and—and  _reasonable!_

"Nice to know I'm not good enough to marry, Wolfram. You could have mentioned it  _earlier_."

Despite the emotionless edge of the Maou's voice, there was still the tiniest thread of accusation woven through it. Wolfram could hear that even in the midst of his own turmoil – he knew Yuuri far too well to ever be fooled.

Oh, marvelous. The blonde winced at his own clumsiness. He'd handled this badly—he'd had a sneaking suspicion even as he'd gone through with it. Now he'd offended Yuuri's weird Human sense of propriety. Probably Concubines, even Royal ones, were  _'bad_ ' in his fiancé's rather straitlaced and narrow-minded view of acceptable relationships—

—or maybe Yuuri was naive enough to assume that Wolf's ready avowal to accept less than what he rightfully deserved actually meant he didn't  _care_?

"Yuuri! Wait –  _wait!"_

The blonde flung himself forward, tackling Yuuri's waist and bared back and gripping as hard as he could, wrapping his arms firmly around the warmth of the teenager's body. He pressed his burning cheek against the still perspiring line of Yuuri's long spine and practically shouted negation.

" _Yuuri_! You stupid, presumptuous  _idiot_ of a fiancé! That's  _not at all_  what I said or—or what I  _meant—_ and you  _know it!_  Of course I'd marry you – I'd give every breath in my body to be your real Consort, every drop of blood, my bones and my eternal soul and my contract with fire to be the one you want, but,  _but_ –"

Oh, gods, how Wolf hated to admit this, but some things were entirely beyond his considerable influence and power and Shibuya Yuuri was one of them. And Wolf could never let Yuuri doubt even for a moment how much he was wanted, how much he was loved.

It was unacceptable.

With all the innate courage Wolfram von Bielefeld could call to his will, as ably as ever he called his fire, he took firm hold of the one objection Yuuri had stuck to so vociferously throughout the three years of their 'accidental' engagement – the one unanswerable point of conflict Wolf had always shrugged away as if it held no importance in the grand scheme of events, for it was cogent solely to the Earth-born Maou—seized it by its wretchedly scrawny neck and firmly ran it through with the stainless sword of his own precious dignity, for it was but a bogeyman before him. To Yuuri, though, it was what mattered. Wolfram  _knew_. And betwixt and between these two polar opposites of culture, Wolfram would always choose what was important to his beloved, no matter the cost to himself.

"You want a stupid female! I'm  _not_  a stupid female! Not a female  _at all_ , you wimpy Maou!"

And thus fell the fabled pride of Lord Wolfram von Bielefeld, formerly Rightful Fiancé to His Majesty the 27th Maou, honorably deceased on the field of battle.

And thus was revealed only a youth familiarly known as 'Wolf-chan', who loved that wimp Yuuri.


	12. Yuuri's (Mis) Understanding

 

"…Erm?"

The Maou's ramrod straight back eased in an instant. Tentative fingers slid over Wolfram's clenched fingers where they had Yuuri clasped in a death-grip, stubbornly hanging on for dear life in the fury of his denial. The soldier's lean hands were petted gently, and stroked, and dark eyes that were blessedly warm again turned to peep at Wolf over the Maou's bare shoulder.

"Um…what?"

The Maou was clearly back at Step One, 'puzzled', which for his ex-fiancé was a most pleasant change from the racking agony of but a moment previous.

The Mazoku sucked in a huge gulp of air in relief and continued after the briefest of pauses, moderating his voice to something less than a roar. This was crucial, what he said next. It could make or break him—them—and Wolf couldn't even begin to contemplate failure. If the wimp didn't understand, then he could explain it, in detail, with diagrams and references and historical precedents. It wasn't like he _couldn't_  be eloquent if he tried.

"Yuuri. Yuuri, I'm saying—I'm trying to tell you that I'm  _not_ …a woman. Obviously. I can't be that for you no matter what I do, no matter how much I wish I could. But, Yuuri, it doesn't matter – listen to me, please, Yuuri," when the Maou shook his head vaguely.

" _Listen_. What I am or am not isn't important as long as you want me. That's all I need, all I care about. And the only thing you need to know is that I'm here…for  _you_ , Yuuri, and for Greta. You don't have to choose between what you want and what you've been raised to believe is 'suitable'. I won't force you, alright? If you'd rather have someone, um, 'convenient' – like what we just did— well, then I'll  _be_  that – I  _want_ to be that, you wimp!"

" _Eh!?_  You  _do!_?"

The ex-Prince tilted his chin up proudly at the bug-eyed black-haired boy, nodding vigorously while simultaneously tightening his arms and edging closer in an attempt to wrap Yuuri into an awkward backwards hug, and hurried on with what had to be the most difficult explanation of his entire life, well aware he was likely making a mess of things as always, his stormy eyes green as the wind-whipped seas and leaking the occasional steaming drop of salt-water, all unbeknownst to him.

He would  _try_ , to the very utmost of his ability, because this was life or death to Wolf, as brutal and threatening and in-one's-face _immediate_  as facing down one of the Maou's enemies in pitched battle or leaping to dispatch one of Yuuri's many would-be assassins.

"Yes – I  _do_. I'll be here in Blood Pledge anyway, Yuuri—I can't very well leave Greta, can I?—and you can trust  _me_  of all people not to...not to ask for favors or gifts or anything like that in return for…"

Wolf's husky voice broke and nearly bottomed out as he searched for the right way to make Yuuri understand. He struggled for  _calm_  and  _reasonable_ , knowing Yuuri would listen if he could just manage to sound more like Conrad.

"For  _your_ favors– as Maou, I mean," Wolf managed, ignored the pang inspired by the thought of Yuuri's relationship with his half-brother. There was nothing he could about that but endure it.

"B-But, Wolf-chan—" Yuuri opened his mouth to interrupt, a little freaked out by Wolf's matter-of-fact discussion of their possible futures. This wasn't what he'd had in mind at all!

"You— _I_ —whaaat?!"

" _I_  already have a perfectly good title and more than sufficient lands and honors," Wolfram ploughed on, heedless, digging his sharp chin into the Maou's shoulder blade as he stuck himself closer and closer to his hopefully future lover, "and an immense fortune, of course—and I  _am_  the best fire-wielder Shin Makoku has, naturally, so I don't  _care_  about sucking up, Yuuri."

A grin ghosted across the Maou's confused face. Now  _that_ , at least, Yuuri could believe.

"Which means I don't need anything from you—er, I  _mean_ , I don't  _want_ anything I'd have to manipulate you to get, Yuuri. Y-You can trust me, you see, like you can't trust the others. Well, not Weller-kyo or Gwendal or Mama, of course—but you know what I mean, don't you?"

Yuuri simply gawped at the weird sexy alien who'd obviously snuck in and stolen away his Wolf-chan.

Wolfram swallowed hard, nearly losing it for a second.

"You've seen it, h-haven't you? All those people cozying up to you, Yuuri, trying to get you to do things or give things or hand them some advantage? Or like Waltorana, plotting against you—even if he meant well, he still did it anyway, the bastard! But  _I_  won't take advantage of you or betray you— no matter what happens, Yuuri–-and—and that's  _important_ ; you need to have someone you can trust to—to be…available, always…like  _that_."

Stunned, the Maou nodded faintly—not in agreement, but in sheer befuddlement—and his harried soon-to-be-ex-fiancé took that as a very good sign and rushed on.

"Even a Consort can't necessarily give you  _that_  – what if you do marry solely for the sake of Shin Makoku, Yuuri? There's no counting on your Consort to love you, not if she's only here to cement some stupid peace treaty with some stupid ally! It's like my mother, don't you see?  _She_  never had anyone who'd simply stay with her, no regrets, and that's why she cried so much, I'm sure of it."

"Wolf—"

But there was no stopping Wolfram now—he was on a roll of monolithic proportion. These words of his—they were the only justification he could offer, the only way he could think of to simply  _hold on;_ to be allowed to stay despite the faceless woman who would replace him. He just needed a reason, something Yuuri would buy into—

An excuse to give his headstrong love so he could protect him. So there would always be a hand to grab onto, a wimp to shake his head over.

"—chan, I don't th—"

Emerald eyes went wide as yet another wave of anxiety slammed him. Yuuri was so damned adorable! Cute and sexy and idiotically naïve, only barely out of boyhood and no match at all for the ruthless schemes of foreign rulers who would pawn their daughters to court him! His darling Yuuri would be eaten alive before he even got hitched if Wolf couldn't manage to convince him—

"You  _need_  someone, Yuuri! Someone who won't make you suffer, wimp – someone who'll worry about  _your_  happiness more than their own. It's incredibly difficult to be the Maou all the time, every day of your life.  _I_  know that; I've seen it, watched both you and Mama…and you really _are_  a w-wimp and y-you like to take b-breaks and goof off and–"

"Wolf-chan!"

Wolfram stumbled to a halt, agonized suddenly by the lack of weight all his words seemed to carry, the resounding absence of instant agreement from the Maou in his arms…and then tossed like a white handkerchief his last, lamer-than lame 'reason' at Yuuri's metaphorical feet.

"And— w-who's going to let you get away with all that if I'm n-not  _here_ , Yuuri?"

Gracelessly, hopelessly—and he was currently a far cry from the legendary Slayer of Mazoku Hearts, that charming young noble who could do anything he set his mind to—Wolfram von Bielefeld lobbed his 'gift' into the yawning silence of Yuuri's listening. This was it, the words that would free his beloved forever from the cage of Wolfram's very existence. The words only he could give.

"Don't you g-get it, wimp?" he whispered fiercely, burying his hot face in Yuuri's hair. "I don't have to be your _fiancé_  to be  _yours_ , Yuuri. You can m-marry… s-someone else."

"Ah?"

The Maou blinked and opened his mouth once or twice—rather like a choking koi or a netted flounder—before he fumbled around his swirling head and found what he thought might the proper response to such an unheard of, uncalled for, utterly unrealistic offer. To be horribly honest, he really didn't understand this at all – didn't Wolf-chan  _want_  to marry him? Why would he say they didn't have to if he wanted to?

Why would Wolf tell him he was willing to be Yuuri's—um, well, er, the Japanese word for it was  _okami_ , but the Maou would bet every single one of his prized American baseball cards his fiancé hadn't meant  _that!_  No way! No how! So some how, some way,  _he_  must have missed something really vital in that torrent of words Wolf-chan with which had just deluged him! Wolf-chan couldn't have possibly meant—

"Er. Right, so…you mean… you feel…sorry…for me, Wolfram?"

But maybe he'd just been trying to tell Yuuri that he wasn't measuring up yet. That Yuuri needed to work harder at being a good Maou—Wolf-chan said stuff like that all the time, so…maybe?

The hesitant question only started Wolf-chan off again, pell-mell, blowing steam like a runaway freight train.

" _No_! No, you  _idiot!_  Shinou Above!I _meant_  that I'm  _not_  sorry for you; I don't have any  _reason_  to be sorry for you!"

By Shinou's Sword, Yuuri was just so damned infuriating sometimes! Wolfram huffed and grasped his fiancé's arms, jerking him around enough so that he could tell him to his stupid-cute face just  _why_  Wolfram wanted him—needed him—so very badly.

"You're handsome and charming and sincere and really, really cute and sexy and there's a lot of …there's a lot of people out there who would want to be with you, Yuuri, myself included, but you have to find the  _right_  one—somebody who loves you for  _you_ , and even after—after, s-sometimes it's not so easy to be with that person, and I –  _I'm_  here for you all the time so…so…maybe you should consider…me."

"Ohh..kaay?"

Yuuri's face was a study in 'dealing with the unexpected mad person while naked'. This was  _not_  making him happy, what with Wolf-chan maybe saying he didn't care or maybe it was someone else who didn't—who knew what went on under all that blonde hair, anyway?—and it was getting really late and Yuuri just wanted to snuggle and maybe do some more of those…'things' from Gisela's manual.

"Uh, yes? Yes, as in I  _do_ , erm—I mean, we're engaged, Wolf?  _Remember?_  But…but maybe it's  _you_  who doesn't …doesn't really care about me that way? Or—or not?"

A jolt of pure rage whipped through the fire-wielder, energizing him and jerking him right out of the shallows of despondency.  _Why_  did Yuuri have to be so damned dense all the time?  _Why_  couldn't he just get it?

Wolfram shook Yuuri hard, till the teenager's teeth rattled.

"Arrghh!  _Who_  in the fires of  _hell_  told you  _that_ , wimp!? For Shinou's Sake,  _I love you_!"

Wolfram shook the Maou some more, just because; there was really nothing else he could do, when Yuuri was being so innocent and stupid and—and  _not listening!_

"Love you-love you-love you!"

The Maou was finally galvanized to respond with something other than diffident questions: tight arms slid round the chilled skin of his beautiful blonde bishonen with alacrity, twisting the naked youth into a rib-cracking embrace, hauling him frontways and sideways and 'round till he sprawled across the Maou's thighs and interested 'other' areas. Yuuri's chin settled firmly on Wolf's bright head and he blew a relieved breath, ruffling up an errant honey-gold curl.

Wolfram, for his part, cuddled into Yuuri's chest immediately, entwining his arms and legs around and about Yuuri's torso, cat-like, for he was terribly grateful to be back there for  _whatever_  reason.

He'd been a fool just now, the stalwart soldier decided, ranting on and on about how he loved his reluctant and 'ex' betrothed, but hopefully Yuuri would write it off as merely 'friendship' or 'loyalty' or something. Yuuri was like that, as Wolf knew from past experience.

But hopefully…hopefully Yuuri would still let him have what he desired most of all – a little tiny corner of his hectic Royal life. Wolfram could live happily if he had that much, even if some stupid, ungrateful female snatched his rightful place as Consort. But he'd better make damned sure to define his new place  _now_ , before some  _other_  hussy came along and took it away from him.

"Wolf…."

Yuuri heaved a long-suffering sigh at last, totally exhausted by the sheer amount of baffling information his hot-headed Wolf-chan had just shoved his way. Obviously, something was very, very wrong in the state of Caloria—that was to say,  _here_  and  _now_  and with  _Wolf-chan_ , and he had to get to the bottom of it or there'd be no peace in his bedroom, or anywhere else, for that matter…but there was a rather serious distraction currently perched between his thighs. Yuuri wanted to get this over with and totally cleared off the map, so that meant no cuddling just yet. He had to be able to think, didn't he?

"Yeesh!"

The young Maou exhaled again, determined now and ever so slightly miffed at all this drama, and began to carefully reverse the process, extricating his fiancé from between his legs.

"Here—Wolf. Hang on a second, okay?"

_No!_

"W-Wait, Yuuri! What are you  _doing_?!"

Wolfram struggled valiantly, clinging with muscled arms and knees that gripped Yuuri's middle in a punishing vise. He was being forcefully displaced again, the arms that had embraced him so tightly easing, broad hands directing him off Yuuri's warm hips and on to the chilly sheets, settling him there like a discarded doll.

The Maou edged away, evading Wolfram's best efforts, and he kept the smaller youth in place with firm hands pressed against delicate, moon-washed shoulders. When Yuuri was satisfied his mercurial fiancé wasn't going to launch himself in some random direction, he took his hands away and sat back very slowly on the rim of the mattress, silently eying the other boy with trepidation.

Wolfram subsided miserably and stared back at him, eyes glassy with unshed tears, tucking his unwanted hands behind his back after an uncomfortable pause.

"I think maybe...  _you_  don't understand," Yuuri began, casting about for some viable method to talk his way out of this one, so that Wolf-chan might smile at him again.

"Wolf-chan…"

Yuuri's gaze was serious and searching, anxious and tentative, and Wolfram shivered, increasingly forlorn. He had done something unforgivable, apparently, something disgusting – he could see it now, reflected in those sincere black eyes. A dry sob crept up his throat and he swallowed it back, terrified. What if this was the end of it? Really the end? What if there was no more, all because he—

"You c-can ignore it, Yuuri, if you don't want it," Wolf said, answering some question that only he heard, his voice soft as the breeze that blew through the window, thin as the shadows cast by crescent moon. "Me, I mean."

"It doesn't matter, does it? How  _I_  feel? That's not the important thing here, right? It's just—I'm not  _telling_ …I'm only saying that perhaps, just maybe, you might—"

" _Sheesh!_  Damn it, Wolfram! Would you just shut up for a half a sec and listen to _me_  for once?!"

It was the ringing slap that stopped the blonde's tears in their tracks. Yuuri could think of no other, better way to do it, but it burned Wolfram, that blow, causing his ashen face to smart like the dickens, and it effectively hauled him right back out of the abyss into which he'd inadvertently fallen.

Wolfram gabbled soundlessly and swayed in shock over _his_  Yuuri actually daring to hit him.

It was only the Maou's quick action in catching the blonde's shoulders that prevented the Mazoku from lurching backwards and landing flat on his back in an ungainly heap on the tangled up bed sheets.

"What in Shinou's Name was  _that_ for?!" the irate Mazoku demanded, a wash of fire returning to his green eyes.

"Y-Yuuri?!"

"Wolfram von Bielefeld," Yuuri said, slowly and deliberately, in the process of yanking his somewhat oblivious fiancé upright and safely back into his arms, "listen up, okay? This is important."

Dazed, Wolfram nodded. His cheek was a marvelous shade of scarlet. Yuuri touched it with a careful fingertip in apology and then propped Wolf's chin up so that he could keep those amazing green eyes fixed on him for once.

This time there would be no questioning as to whether Yuuri meant it; no doubts or 'would you have rather?'s' or 'why  _me_!'s'

"Look, will you marry me, Wolf-chan? Really,  _really_? To have and to hold, forever after,  _forsaking all others_ , till death do us part?"

Wolfram's eyes popped. He took his turn at imitating a dying flounder and gasped in silent disbelief, his mouth assuming a perfect 'O'.

_What? What? Whaaat!? What did he mean by that?_

"Did you hear me? Wolf-chan?"

_Oh, Yuuri!_

"Come on, Wolf-chan, don't keep me in suspense here—just. You know." The Maou squirmed a bit and flushed, projecting 'uncomfortable'.

_Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuri! Hiccup_.

The tears were back—or rather, this time Wolfram actually realized he was doing something as undemonly as crying—but it didn't matter, not in the least. Shin Makoku's second most powerful magic-wielder was suddenly a watering pot, dripping and sniffling and mumbling incoherent sounds that all meant 'yes!' and 'I love you!' and 'You wimp!" in a language incomprehensible to everyone else but him….until an impatient Maou kissed Wolf as hard he'd slapped him earlier.

When they finally stopped, Yuuri had to remind Wolf of the question at hand.

"I just slapped you, Wolfram – you  _do_  know what  _that_ means, right? Yeesh! Say  _something_!"

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, ye—!"

Wolfram's eyes were immensely wide in his pale face, the 'yeses' dammed up by the tongue tangled against his palette. He opened his mouth wider and angled his head just right, welcoming in the heat that seemed to flood him, surrendering happily to an unnamable emotion. It was incredible, impossible, and unbelievable; he didn't, even for a second, believe it.

He would've protested—in a minute, maybe, after Yuuri was done kissing him—but Yuuri forestalled him in a Maou-ish maneuver, pushing his fiancé's naked body back down on the mussed sheets, sliding a thigh proprietarily over pliant hips. Yuuri had serious hopes for a second round. Soon, before he fell asleep.

Not for long.

"Pinch me!"

Wolf turned his head suddenly, removing his lips most ungently from his ardent lover's, his entire gorgeous visage assuming a petulant frown. Still, it seemed he'd recovered from his earlier monumental depression completely and was smiling beatifically, the emerald luminescent, even as he frowned.

"What?" the confused Maou asked, befuddled once more. Weren't they done with talking for tonight? Then why was Wolf still talking if they were now actively doing  _something else_?

"Pinch me, Yuuri! It's a dream, isn't it?" his devilish again-official-fiancé demanded. "So,  _pinch me_ , wimp, or I won't believe this is happening. Gods! I probably should've been already dressed by now and you're probably late for breakfa—"

"Idiot."

Wolf-chan was gobbled up again, thoroughly and somewhat smugly. He stopped verbalizing for several minutes, only to start up right back up again when Yuuri allowed him breathing room.

"If you won't pinch me, Yuuri, then take me again – or let me have  _you,"_ Wolfram purred, rubbing his nude torso seductively against his fiancé's, rolling his hips. "I want to remember everything when I finally wake up—every kiss—"

He put action to words, brushing swollen lips across Yuuri's.

"Every  _touch_."

Wolf's fingers drifted up, caressing the shoulders spread above him, jump-starting an electrical current that flickered through Yuuri's ribcage. In truth, the Mazoku had some small experience of his own he'd like to share with his fiancé, and he'd rather enjoy showing Yuuri a few things he'd learned that would make  _him_  squirm and possibly scream with satisfaction—the way  _Wolf_  felt.

"Every… _taste_ …"

A pink tongue probed Yuuri's ear and it was Maou's turn to blush –  _Ohmygods!_ S _o sexy! Shori is soo missing out just dating Sims, poor_   _guy_  – wait! _Why am I thinking of my stupid brother at a time like this?—_  and he could only cover that up by mating his avid mouth with his smoking hot fiancé's, seeking blindly to distract his truculent lover from any shortcomings Yuuri might be concealing underneath his new-found confidence.

Not surprisingly, Yuuri was rather good at liplocks, having had so much recent practice. He was good at quite a few things that were detailed in the infamous manual. A natural, even. And it was very  _reassuring_ , to be sure, the incredibly  _positive_  response such caresses generated in one Wolfram von Bielefeld, the Maou's Fiancé, soon to be Shibuya Wolfram…or perhaps he'd be Yuuri von Bielefeld, or whatever, maybe they'd hyphenate; it didn't matter at all to Yuuri, 'cause Wolfram was  _hot_ —

— _and how he'd ever doubted that he could_ do _this, he'd never know—_

…and he adored his pesky, annoying, abusive, delightfully shy Wolf-chan to utter distraction; always had. Wolfram was just adorable, even more so than Greta, and that was saying a lot, but it all came down to the fact that Yuuri was never, ever going to stop loving him, now or in the future, in any world or any time. In fact, probably tomorrow they'd elope, 'cause Gunter was scarier than Mom and Cheri-sama combined when it came to his horribly detailed plans for their much-anticipated wedding.

And Gwendal would probably forgive Yuuri for eloping…one day. He hoped.

 


	13. The Power of Positive Thinking

A nagging memory struck the Maou, sometime later, when Wolf-chan was nearly asleep, tucked into the curve of his greedy arms, and both of them were completely satisfied in a way they'd certainly never been before. He wasn't quite sure if he really believed what his brain was telling him – it was all a little foggy – so he asked Wolf-chan, just to be sure.

"Wolfram?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you really just offer to be my, uh, erm, Royal Concubine?"

"…!"

"Really!? You'd actually let me have one?"

Yuuri's wrist was nipped unexpectedly by sharp white teeth. Very enjoyable sensation, actually. Just a little scary.

"I'd never allow it to be anybody other than  _me_ , if that's what you're asking, wimp. And, if you ever tell  _anyone_ , especially Conrad and Gwendal, that I offered to do that, I'll fry you!"

"Oh."

A kiss was pressed into the center of Yuuri's palm, wet and sweet.

"…But I would've done it if I had to, Yuuri; if you didn't see sense any other way. That's  _my_  right, as your Fiancé," the green-eyed demon assured him, snuggling closer.

"Ah?"

He liked the familiar way Wolf-chan grabbed his shoulder blades; the way he laid his blonde head against Yuuri's heart.

"Oh. That's okay, then."

Damn, but he was hard again.

"Damn right it's 'okay'!" Wolfram grumbled, and insinuated his other hand between Yuuri's thighs.

So very, very hard.

"…Wolf-chan, are you…tired?"


End file.
